A Krogan misplaced
by Baron Steakpuncher
Summary: Urdnot Wrex had not expected the ship he was on to crash, let alone in so desolate an area of the galaxy. Yet to his surprise the planet on which he landed had some... inhabitants. #Blatant First Contact AU
1. Chapter 1 : Entry

**_A Krogan misplaced: Chapter 1_**

 ** _Light salarian freighter Turning Wheel - T'senetheni System - 1040 earth rotations after the death of Urdnot Thrax_**

As he sat in the dim passenger hold, it's crowded interior bustling with a hundred different sentients, Urdnot Wrex couldn't help but reflect on his life. There was in truth, little else to do to pass the time. Haptic interface programs could only be completed so many times when you had lived for over a millennia. The other passengers on the _Turning Wheel_ offered little in the way of conversation. The mostly turian complement ignored him or eyed him warily, while the handful of asari and salarians merely gave him the occasional sideglance. Even the sole elcor mercenary and the constantly moving quarian maintenance tech payed little attention to the scowling krogan warlord.

Gone were the days when the galaxy feared the Krogan Empire. When planets quavered at the name, and entire fleets of superior ships would be sent to stop even minor incursions out of fear. Gone also, were the days when the krogan were loved. A time where they had been looked up to as saviours from the terrifying rachni. Now? Now not even anger at the atrocities committed remained. The krogan were forgotten. Distant dying and barbarous relics of the past. Who'd be extinct within a millennia and save everybody else the trouble.

Urdnot Wrex was one of the few krogan who had lived long enough to see it all happen. And yet he couldn't find it in himself to care. His people weren't worth saving at this point anyway. Thousands of petty clans and warlords. Mercenaries, thugs and pirates. Criminals. That was what the galaxy saw the krogan as. Sadly the galaxy wasn't wrong. The krogan today weren't worthy of reclaiming the glories of empire. The grand bronze throne of Urdnot. The mighty pyramids of Urunakh, and the maw-temple of Kalros the everliving. The title of his grandsire and his sire before him. These things like krogan would fade into dust. And Urdnot Wrex would fade with them.

Wrex's musings were interrupted by a loud chime from the speakers. As the ringing musical note spread throughout the vessel, Wrex lifted his head slightly to pay attention. After all, it would be something to break the boredom of the three whole galactic cycles worth of travel.

Wrex heard a slight buzzing sound as the Salarian captain who owned the passenger freighter turned on the intercom. Listening attentively, Wrex waited for the Captain to speak.

With a short _'hssst'_ the haptic screen which faced the passenger bay turned on to reveal the face of Thothus Idenai Mannovai. A salarian whom Wrex had the displeasure of working with before. The salarian's face was seemingly perpetually set in a scowl, and though Wrex knew that to the average salarian it would appear as if Idenai was constantly disinterested, to Wrex it just seemed off-putting.

"Passengers this is your captain speaking. In approximately 20 standard units we will be entering through Relay 618 into the Aethon cluster. From there we will stop at Irune and Oma Ker. I repeat, our only stops in this cluster will be Irune and Oma Ker, any transport you otherwise seek must be done through other transport networks. As usual I would ask you turn off any non-haptic devices for the duration of the transit. May the wheel guide us all."

The haptic screen abruptly shut off and the two hundred sentients got back to talking about themselves. Wrex just sat back, closed his inner eyelids, and listened to the meaningless babble of the crowd. It wasn't like anything important was ever going to happen to these people, so perhaps he should commit something of them to memory. It would not be worthy of the last loresinger to chant during the cold and dark nights of Tuchunka. Nor would it be something that the vast majority of the galaxy would ever care about. But memory was something important, and since Wrex would be alive long after the galaxy had forgotten everything about these people, who better to remember them?

So Urdnot Wrex listened.

The turians were a subset of Clan Arterius that had lived on Digeris, but a earthquake had levelled their homes, killing the majority of people inside the settlement. The Hierarchy had decided to resettle them as auxilia on Oma Ker, something that the Chieftain vehemently disagreed with, but couldn't challenge. The clan had thus resigned itself to what would likley be the rest of their lives, building the foundation for a city that would probably not even know they existed in a hundred years.

The asari were all from the clanless, mostly from Thessia itself but a handful had joined the ship at Illium. Their motives were many, a handful of younger ones sought to join Jona's newly revived Eclipse sisterhood. Wrex hoped Jona was doing alright, she might not be anywhere close to sane anymore, but Wrex remembered when Jona Sederis had been a normal, if bloodthirsty member of his krant. He offered a small prayer to the Everliving Kalros on Jona's behalf. She'd appreciate that.

There was also a Matron and her two young daughters, they were returning to the mothers bondmate, who was of all things, a volus. The tales of the rest varied, a handful were fleeing repercussions for actions they shouldn't have taken, some were just looking for a new life on Oma Ker. An elderly matriarch was simply seeking to visit the grave of her first bandmate, and reconnect with her daughter, who was apparently a relatively high off member of the Irune central bank.

The salarians were a band of cultists centred around a wheel priest, who had apparently decided for whatever reason that he had to be on this trip. Wrex had only met three wheel priests during his entire life, and he had learnt the hard way to respect them, even if they spouted nonsense with seeming regularity, their power was to be respected.

The elcor and the quarian had struck up a conversation on their own lives, the elcor like Wrex had been hired for a job on Irune, something that was going to pay well. The quarian on the other hand was a pilgrim, Idenai had promised the pilgrim a complete freighter engine if he worked for five years. Wrex would believe the salarian was that generous when the Turian Hierarchy ordered a general retreat. He wouldn't be suprised if the unfortunate pilgrim just got dumped somewhere. If the pilgrim was particularly unlucky then that somewhere might be out an airlock. The Elcor shared Wrex's opinion on the matter and was informing the quarian of the realities of the situation.

The pilgrim had just started to voice his disagreement with the massive mercenary when the familiar feeling of a going through a mass relay started. The _'thrum'_ of the the ship being dragged along the the massive eezo core of the relay was something which Wrex had gotten used to. But this time it seemed...different.

Wrex blinked several times to make sure his senses weren't deceiving him. But just as he made up his mind to ask the quarian what was going on, the _Turning Wheel_ was shot through the relay.

Wrex stood still as the ship left the relay, craning his massive head, something that's remarkably hard to do inside battle armour, he listened for something, anything unusual. But there was noth...was that a whine?

The salarian model 8 Mannovai-Sath troop transport is notable as being one of the more durable starships created by the Union. Although almost three centuries out of date, the Mannovai-Sath is a hardy and spacious vessel, capable of transporting large amounts of cargo or crew as needed, while being capable of surviving most low level incidents in space due to its comparatively good armour and shielding systems. Unfortunately, an eezo explosion midway through faster-than-light transit is not survivable by a dreadnought, let alone a light freighter.

The explosion, followed immediately by an implosion ripped through the engine section, killing every single person in the rear portion of the vessel, and causing the vast majority of eezo present on the ship to be spread over roughly a quarter of the galactic length. The cargo/crew compartment in which the majority of passengers were present at the time was fortunate enough, along with the ships front half, to survive the initial explosion with no hull breaches or indeed any casualties at all bar an unfortunate turian who snapped his neck when the artificial gravity abruptly failed.

The explosive detonation of the engine also forced the _Turning Wheel_ off its pre-programmed course, shooting it outwards towards the "eastern" half of the galaxy. Statistically, the freighter should have hit something, or shot through a stellar body or a black hole, which would have brought it's journey to a swift and unfortunate end.

But chance, or perhaps fate, intervened. The _Turning Wheel_ travelled a full quarter of a galactic length in under ten minutes, as there was no speed limiter like those the end of a mass relay possessed. After ten minutes, the realities of not possessing an engine, along with numerous near collisions with gravity exuding bodies brought it into the Sol system. The ship was still fast enough that those few viewing the nights sky on the third planet could see it as a bright beacon amidst the stars.

The _Turning Wheel_ travelled the entire length of the solar system in under a minute, before abruptly shuddering to a "slow" 450 km an hour, right outside the third planets atmosphere. It proceeded to travel at that speed directly into the third planets atmosphere on a downwards course, before striking the ground with enough speed to liquify much of the surrounding dirt. Amazingly enough, through all this, the cargo pod was not breached.

 ** _Commonwealth of Australia - Sydney - Bicentennial Park - 2nd of June 2041_**

Madison Toulouse nearly tripped as she rushed out of the news van. Her camera crew following after her the group rushed towards the enormous crater which had suddenly appeared in the heart of Sydney.

Most of the city had felt the impact before they heard it, the sudden outwards push of air shattering many windows and deafening, albeit not permanently the vast majority of people within a block's radius of the Bicentennial Park. Already a massive crowd of those nearby had formed and begun to assist those in need, with the help of numerous onsite paramedics. And a cordon had been set around the impact site itself.

Madison didn't know what the hell hit the park, but to her it didn't matter, this was the story of a lifetime. Setting herself and her team up directly on the rim of the crater, which in addition to being the width of a football field was easily a hundred metres deep at the centre and still smoking.

As the lights on the Camera turned on, Madison put on a radiant smile before beginning to speak.

"This just in, it was a wonderful day in the city interrupted by a disaster unprecedented and unforeseen. As you can see behind me Bicentennial Park is in ruins, we don't have any confirmed missing or dead but the formerly pristine image of Australian nature is gone. Now the exact nature of the object which caused this is a mystery, some people thinking it may even be a meteor, while some claim it was a missile or plane. Authorities have yet to issue a statement on the matter but I'm told..."

Madison looked to her cameraman Themya as the Sri Lankan man was pointing down with a trembling finger. Turning away from the camera, Madison noted that the smoke had cleared. The object in the centre of the crater, distant though it was, was evidently not natural. Misshapen and dented, it looked like a 40x40 square hulk of metal. But that wasn't what had caught her cameraman's attention, which had instead been drawn to a large figure which had emerged from a hole in the metal. Covered in strange red clothing that looked almost like a spacesuit, and almost 9ft, as the Americans would say, the figure was quite clearly not human.

Without knowing it, Urdnot Wrex raised his head to the world.

Within ten minutes, that single piece of footage had spread to the internet, as well as all other broadcasting networks within Australia. Within twenty, it was being reported in other countries and had become a trend on Twitter, Facebook and Yanya. It had been viewed six million times on youtube from thirty different sources and governments and agencies around the world had noticed. By the half hour mark the stock market had become far more profitable for space ventures and within forty minutes various leaders around the world were inquiring as to what to do. By the 1 hour mark a emergency meeting had been called for the United Nations and in less than 12 hours the vast majority of the population of a small planet called Earth, knew they were not alone.

 ** _AUTHORS NOTES  
_**  
I uh... had a plot bunny? But seriously, this is my first real mass effect fanfic attempt. I give all due credit to LogicalPremise | FanFiction  
Who inspired this work. And whom much of the lore and concepts (especially for the non-krogan) is drawn.


	2. Chapter 2 : Exit

**_A Krogan misplaced: Chapter 2_**

 **Former Bicentennial Park - Sydney - Australia**

Urdnot Wrex awoke to darkness. The lights had gone out at some point during the trip, truthfully between all the screaming and panicking sentients he hadn't noticed exactly when, and he couldn't hear anything either. It wasn't the feeling of dullness that occurred when he was deaf, there just wasn't anything moving. Wrex gave a small curse as he fumbled for his omni-tool, as his hand passed over the sensors they lit the room in a brief surge of light, before sputtering out and dying after a few seconds.

Those few seconds had been enough to give Wrex one piece of information though. Everyone else who had been on the freighter was dead.

Wrex gave another louder curse and reached into his armor for his backup omni-tool. The backup was hardly a artistic masterpiece nor was it the latest version, it was over a hundred years old and essentially useless in most situations. Nevertheless, the thing was hardy, easily capable of lasting centuries without recharge if the batarian he'd bought it from was correct.

After reaching into the wrong pocket twice, he finally found it. With a slight scowl Wrex scanned the newly lit up interior of the cargo pod.

His earlier glance was confirmed, no life but his was present. The quarian must have died first, possibly even before the ship had entered the atmosphere. The pilgrims broken body was nonetheless prostrated over an equally dead salarian, one of the crewmembers if Wrex's memory didn't fail him. The elcor was by far the most obvious, partially scorched from where it had rested against the wall during reentry the mercenary was nonetheless relatively intact. Wrex could remember the matriarch and matrons attempting to create a biotic shield over the majority of passengers, those few who hadn't been burnt to a crisp in freefall or been crushed as the pod landed instead had the misfortune to break their bodies against the harsh and unyielding barrier of an asari.

The salarians had attempted to reach the point of the pod Wrex was at, maybe they'd judged it to have the highest chance of survival on reentry. Their bodies were even more broken than that of the quarian, cartilage and flesh pulped by the sheer force of landing when it hadn't set afire from the heat.

The turians, if Wrex was looking at things right, had attempted to form a literal ball around the hatchlings and other young ones. Perhaps if they had been further away from the edge of the craft, and thus the scorching heat of reentry, they might of survived. As it was, Wrex could not smell a hint of life from the pile of charred corpses.

As he looked himself over Wrex found the only real injury he'd suffered was a metal bar which had forced itself through his left thigh. Giving a small sigh at the pain which was about to come, he grabbed the metal bar, focused on the old power deep within him, and used his biotics to **pull**. The pain was immense, and as the metal bar landed on the other side of the room, Wrex began to apply some of his combat salve to the wound. Once that was done he felt his armour to look for any breaches, but he couldn't find anything else beyond a few cuts from the jagged metal the interior of the pod had turned into on impact. Really it seemed the only loss was his omni-tool and his gear in luggage.

Ever since his father had attempted to strike him down Wrex had been dubious of the power of the ancestors. Yet to look at the scene before him? Over two hundred dead sentients, and he was the sole survivor. Perhaps later a proper prayer rite would have to be undertaken. It never did ill to thank those who had come before. But none of that would help him get out of this situation alive at the moment. As he waited for his legs to feel less like a varren had gnawed on them, Wrex shone the light of his omni-tool around the room, looking for the exit he knew was there.

It took ten standard minutes for his leg to heal to the point where he felt he could walk on it, and as an experienced mercenary Wrex knew to use what time he had well. He'd salvaged his Graal Spike thrower from his armour, fortunately his executioner pistol had also survived, but there ended the good news. He was completely lacking in anything approaching food, and one could only live on dead asari, salarians and elcor for so long before they rotted away. He had tried to get a signal on his omni-tool, and even though he knew his omni wasn't worth the metal in the credits used to buy it, it should have picked up **something**. But no, it didn't have a single kalros-damned signal.

That meant he was somewhere isolated...but habitable, if the fact that he was still alive was anything to go by. There wasn't any guarantee that there was anything sentient at all on the planet, and he certainly couldn't build the equipment required to change that. It took Wrex less than a minute to make his decision, he'd have to look outside.

Wrex slid the hatch aside, and raised his head out. Apparently the ship had made a canyon when it landed, the steaming and smoking rock covered his entire field of view. Still, he'd have to look around to learn exactly where he was, maybe find a hill or something. Heaving the rest of his body out took some effort, and right now Wrex was actually feeling 1300 years old, after he was completely out of the hatch he glanced up, trying to see how high the canyon the ship had created was.

Initially Wrex mistook the bobbing objects for rocks, maybe covered with a plant analogue. But then one of them moved, and then Wrex realised exactly what they were.

Heads.

Hundreds upon hundreds of faces peering down at him from the ledges above. His eyes were good enough to spot the difference between aliens even at distance, and these weren't batarian, wrong structure. In structure they looked similar to furred asari, or maybe a quilless and very fat quarian. Heh, fat quarians. Only a century on and you'd think the stick thin figures of the migrant fleet were simply how the race looked, yet Wrex could remember when the average quarian had started to look more like the average volus.

That particularly amusing fact didnt help Wrex right now though. Especially considering that there were an awful lot of faces looking down at him. The features didn't vary as much as a krogan's did, but that was to be expected. Nonetheless he did notice several different colours among the beings, and many seemed to have their fur styled into shapes and patterns. Social structure? Caste system like the batarians? Wrex wished he'd researched the various first contacts more.

What Wrex knew he should not do however, was draw his weapon. Just because he didn't see anything that could be a gun besides that strange device which looked almost like a camera* didn't mean they weren't there. Or twitchy. By all his ancestors in the next realm he hoped these sentients weren't like the krogan.

Maybe he could communicate with them... it would be far easier if one of the asari had survived, but that didn't prevent the basics. As Wrex stood thinking, the natives seemed to get more agitated. He could hear them speak their language to one another, some odd combination of clicks and grunts, with small stops between said combinations that Wrex assumed delineated words. But all that talking stopped when Wrex pulled out his omni-tool. The natives were now all focussing on the panel of orange light, and Wrex could notice many flashes being taken from above, which seemed to indicate the camera he'd spotted before was just that. Which in a way was good, it meant the natives might be decently technologically advanced.

Then Wrex completed what he'd intended to command the omni-tool to do. A bright hologram floated in the air, it was easily a hundred metres in height, and displayed the symbol of the citadel council** for all the planet to see. It was something of a gamble, if they recognised the image it meant they could get him off planet, if they didn't then he was really far from the creche this time.

The chatter above him increased, and he started to hear long wailing cries, they were artificial but he didn't know their meaning. Then the natives started to move away en-mass. Wrex could spy figures in uniforms beginning to shepherd the other natives away from the edges of the canyon he was in. Law enforcement? Security attaches? Special forces? Wrex didn't know, and that unnerved him. As the last of what he assumed were the civilian natives were shooed away from the pit, Wrex decided that it might be best to leave them alone for now. Let them come to him so to speak.

After all, he didn't want to get them agitated, who knew how strange alien cultures could be about the smallest things.

 ** _  
United Nations Building - New York - 1 hour after Wrex exited the ship_**

Being the Secretary General of the United Nations was a hard job. You had to deal with uncooperative nations, international conflicts and emergencies, fortunately no wars had occurred in recent years but frankly that was more luck than anything else.

What Secretary Madina Niyazov had truthfully never expected, was aliens. She'd been born into one of the better off Uzbek families, gotten into politics, somehow gotten into the position of Secretary General. All of that had at least been a pipe dream at some point. But less than an hour ago an alien vessel had crash landed in Sydney. And they knew it was alien because of the fact that one of them exited the damn ship into full view of a live news network and three thousand smart phones. The entire world now knew aliens existed, and the repercussions of that were only just starting to be felt.

Doomsday cults were crying that it was the end times, alien watchers and alleged "abductees" were flocking to buy tickets on airlines which took them to Australia, the stock market was in chaos and had actually shut down in a few nations already.

And in this emergency meeting of the United Nations, that was to say, every nation on the planet, nobody knew what to do. Still, her job was to ensure things got done, perhaps she should do it. She breathed in deeply before yelling in the loudest voice she had yet mustered for a meeting, even the ones with the representative from the Maldives.

 **"QUIET!"**

It took almost five minutes for silence to reign, but when it did, Madina began to speak in a frustrated tone from being bombarded with information for the past hour straight.

"I'm sure you all know why this emergency meeting has been called. Approximately one and a half hours ago an object struck the Bicentennial park in Sydney, no casualties were reported, nor was the object initially identifiable. Approximately an hour and five minutes ago, an alien being exited what we now believe to be an escape pod of some kind, the being is being shown on your screens now... So far as we can identify, it is sentient, it's wearing some kind of bodysuit and it showed the crowd a hologram of the following image"

At her words the strange alien symbol, a blue circle with a five pointed shape inside it, and a single thermometer like shape inside that, was displayed on the screen.

"We don't know what the symbol means, but the alien was watching the reactions of the crowd to it, so we can assume it is of some importance."

Madina gave a small sigh before continuing.

"Currently we are looking to gain information on how to communicate with the alien, so as Secretary General, I am requesting that all nations make available their best linguists, behaviourologists and physiologists so we can reach some form of agreement as quickly as possible. Those specialists will join a team which in seventy two hours will be sent in to attempt basic communications."

She looked around at the numerous delegates and officials, everybody was paying attention, even those that normally would be opposed to certain acts on sheer principle.

"Are there any objections?"

Silence reigned once more.

"Then I suggest we get to the business of formatting a basic alien law, and a guideline for political interactions with aliens since we now know they exist.

This time the responses were nods and affirmatives. The ambassadors and secretaries of the United Nations rapidly got to drafting what would be perhaps the most important pieces of legislation in their lives.

 ** _Authors Notes:  
_**  
Uhhhh. I have a severe case of "write whenever plot comes into head" syndrome. I apologise.

* Assume its a translation of the Krogan term for the word


	3. Chapter 3 : Greetings

**_A Krogan misplaced: Chapter 3  
_**

 ** _X-Site 1 - Former Bicentennial Park - Sydney_**

  
"The Pit" as media outlets across the world were referring to it, had in just three days become one of the single most heavily defended areas on the planet. Soldiers from every member of the United Nations, hundreds of specialists in almost every field of science imaginable, the newest generation of Japanese hoverjets circled the air above, while six of the fearsome Australian "Dingo" superheavy tanks were set on the streets to block any possible form of attack from outside.

The setup of the camp itself was covered in all manner of devices and machines dedicated to learning as much as possible about Earth's newest visitor from afar, while a unit SAS protected the immediate vicinity of "The Pit" itself. If something could conceivably be done to further the chance of a successful first contact it was being done, and many further suggestions were being debated in what passed for the meeting area of the scientific minds present. All of which had lead to the small group of people currently sitting in front of a projector. The fifteen human beings came from that many countries, and were deliberately chosen to be such.

Ruth Nazarian had to admit the team she'd been given was good. Even as a member of the Sayeret you could get poor comrades, but the four in front of her were all professionals, not a single one had made a sound after she'd turned on the projector, in sharp contrast to the academic portion of the room, who were still whispering possible theories amongst themselves.

The bearded man in the front row may have been old and grim faced, but Andre Petrov had over twenty five years of combat experience in the Spetsnaz, something that wasn't as available as it used to be given the troubles that had occurred in Russia recently.

To his side rested the American and Indonesian contributions to the team. The young and seemingly inattentive Obadiah Jamieson starkly contrasting with the stonelike visage of Amir Vonko. If you didn't have access to their credentials beforehand, you might assume to two to be normal, if well built, civilians out of uniform. The high bodycounts listed on their files said otherwise.

The last member of the security team was perhaps the least overtly "military" in appearance. Being neither in the U.N peacekeeper uniforms of the main group, nor indeed anything at all resembling military gear, Christine Ackerson was controlling the dual purpose camera/fire support drone. Denmark's contribution to the effort going on was small, but noticeable.

Ruth only knew the lead member of the academic division personally, the rest being a eclectic mix of unknowns, but since Xi Wong trusted the group Ruth guessed she would have to as well. She was only there in case things went wrong after all. A biologist, two linguists, a psychologist, an expert in reptiles, a behaviourologist, an analyst, two diplomats and a geologist walk into a room. It sounded like the beginning of a bad joke, yet that was what Ruth had to deal with. After she checked her notes a final time, she gestured to the group to get their attention. In the three seconds it took for them to stop talking she started the presentation.

"I'm sure you all know why we're here today?"

Thankfully everyone nodded to that statement. It would have been awkward otherwise.

"As of three days ago, we know we aren't alone in the universe. The crashed vessel, currently codenamed as _Enterprise_ , crash-landed just a block away, we don't have any clue on whether or not is intact, or even if there are any other such vessels nearby. Regardless, we have exactly one confirmed entity which emerged from the vessel."

The burnt and battered sight of the crashed ship was replaced by the single clear image anyone possessed of the alien being. Apparently Arnold was right in _Predator_. The alien was one ugly motherfucker.

"This is why you are here, currently designated as _E.T-1_ , this guy somehow survived the crash landing of his ship. As far as anyone knows he could be the only survivor, or one of many. What we do know about him, and keep in mind we are **assuming** that this being even has the same concept of genders as us, is the following. He's wearing what appears to be some form of armour."

A picture flash onto the screen which highlighted said clothing, the bulky plates of metal didn't seem to be capable of use for anything else.

"It could be a space suit, but if it is one, then it's been rendered useless by a number of holes here, here and here."

The next picture on the screen was a closeup of the aliens wrist when he'd had that weird orange hologram thing active. The technology was fascinating to what few experts she'd talked about, mainly because the aliens fingers seemed to be actually interacting with the hologram as opposed to passing through it, causing some to claim that whatever civilisation the being belonged to had mastered hard-light.

"He also has **this**. Nobody is sure exactly what that is, including whether or not it could conceivably be used as a weapon. As such, be cautious if he uses it again, but don't assume nothing.

Then the picture that popped up was a closeup of the aliens face, the scarred and menacing look as it stared up at the people surrounding the pit. The internet had already made it a meme.

"The actual specifics of his biology is somewhat speculative, but I will let Professor Wong fill you in on what we have identified about that."

Xi tapped the remote controlling the presentation a few more times before the requisite dot points and arrows had appeared on the face, with explanations underneath for various features, before he spoke in his heavily accented english. Despite his faltering control over the language, he nonetheless managed to project the air of someone who knew what he was talking about, and considering the man was one of the premier evolutionary biologists alive he probably did.

"As you can see, E.T is at least superficially reptilian. Currently we think it't convergent evolution, given that he displays several mammalian features like lips. Most relevant to our current situation is his eyes."

Xi used his cane to point at the aliens eyes, tapping it a few times against the material before continuing.

"Eyes can give details about how a species evolved, if they're forward facing like our own, then it means the creature in question is likely a predator, or at least had less reason to be looking in all directions constantly. E.T's eyes on the other hand, face almost sideways, giving him relatively little binocular vision. This suggests his species evolved as a prey item of sorts, and most likely the species retains at least some form of this in their psyche. We must consider the possibility that he could be easily started or angered, and as such I must stress that we make no sudden moves when interacting with him."

The elderly Chinese man then pointed his cane at E.T's exposed teeth.

"The teeth on the other hand, suggest that his species is an extreme omnivore, they superficially resemble those of a human, but on close examination you might notice that molar equivalents are far more prominent. I suspect that E.T could eat just about anything he could fit in his mouth, and given the large cheekbones, he most likley possesses a great bite force."

At that Xi stopped for a moment to gather his thoughts, before sheepishly ending his statement.

"So... you probably shouldn't put your hand in his mouth."

A small silence followed, with one of the scientists up the back sniggering a bit. It was abruptly ended when Amir voiced his question.

"What about the scars?"

The scars in question were perhaps E.T's most notable feature. One massive one cut several centimetres deep into the thick boney crest which dominated his head. The other set was a series of long scrapes down the crest and the left side of his face, only actually ending around halfway down the neck. Truthfully Ruth wasn't sure she wanted to meet whatever could scar something as mean looking as E.T, but given E.T had also survived those wounds it implied he won that fight.

Xi just gave a small shrug to the proffered question before answering.

"We don't now enough to judge, we speculated initially that they might be from the crash, but given the fact that they have healed up I would suggest otherwise. Regardless it doesn't affect our diplomacy besides perhaps not drawing attention to it."

The meeting continued for an hour after that, mostly questions on what to do if certain situations arose, while also confirming their various roles. Everybody knew that as the linguists of the group, Thomas Pell and Edward Amin would be the first to speak, but should they get something approaching a translation or understanding with the alien, then the Ambassadors should join in. Most everyone else was there for observation purposes anyways.

After the meeting ended however, came the hard part.

They'd all scaled their way down the slight slope which lead to the pit with ease, and after Xi reached the bottom, they began to make their towards the vessel. Ruth had to admit the blackened and dented hull made quite the impression, mainly because it was forty metres in length. It took a few minutes to actually make their way on top of the hull and towards the hatch though.

Andre heaved the hatch open, and entered down first, his flashlight shining into the darkness. After him went Amir, then the linguists and other scientists, Xi, Obadiah and she hopped down last.

It took a few seconds for her eyes to adjust to the light, but when they did she joined everyone else in open mouthed horror.

They'd entered a tomb.

Maybe that wasn't how it was supposed to appear, but the several hundred stacked bodies gave the impression of some of histories darker moments. They seemed to be of several different species, one corpse in particular being absolutely massive even compared to E.T, while the majority were almost human in size, shape. Even in facial features if a couple of the blue ones were to be the judge. Ruth sure hoped her camera was working, control really needed to see this.

Most of the corpses though...most were definitely not humanoid by any stretch of the imagination. They looked...spiky? They were strange, legs bent at the wrong angles, and although it was difficult to tell through the charred mass of corpses, she thought she could spy crests on them.

None of that truly mattered to her at the moment though. She was far more concerned by the sheer...awfulness of the situation. Easily two hundred beings had died in this room, and...wait where was E.T?

The group turned practically as one when they heard several loud footsteps behind them. For a split second Ruth wondered why she was staring at a metal plate. Then she looked up.

E.T was a lot bigger in person. Closer to three metres than two if she was any judge. He wasn't carrying any weapons, he wasn't moving towards them. He was just standing there, staring at them. The look on his face was...almost neutral. No obvious shows of emotion being visible at all.

Ruth quickly got over her shock as sh remembered why they were in the graveyard of a ship in the first place. As she pointed to herself, she spoke the first human words ever said to an alien.

"Ruth"

E.T repeated the motion, his massive gauntleted hand on his chest as he spoke a single word.

"Wrex"

AUTHORS NOTE:  
Last chapter you guys get for the next week-2 weeks I'm afraid, but here it is.  
(PS, I'm bad at spotting misspelt words so if you see any pls tell meh)


	4. Chapter 4 : Meetings

**_A Krogan misplaced: Chapter 1_**  
 ** _  
Crash site of the "Turning Wheel" - Former Bicentennial Park - Sydney_**

  
As Urdnot Wrex heaved the elcor's corpse onto the pile of dead sapients, the titanic being appearing serene even in death, he ran his mind through what he had recovered. It had been the work of almost a full Tuchankan day to systematically search through the one hundred and seventeen corpses. After depriving them of what few goods they'd possessed in life, he had divided them into two piles.

The majority of the unfortunate passengers and crew the _Turning Wheel_ had aboard when she went down were going to be left to the side of the cargo pod. Once he ran out of food the corpses would suffice for a time, he could even eat the turians if it became necessary, though privately he dreaded the gastric troubles that would come afterwards, it was still better than dying.

The exception to that were the children. Four young asari, one barely old enough to have begun walking. Fifteen turians, most barely out of the egg. The quarian, who was just slightly too short to be an adult. And a single salarian, it's horns just starting to emerge from it's skull, the wide eyes staring blankly at the ceiling.

The children he would bury, it wouldn't be in the custom of their races, indeed he suspected not one of the passengers would appreciate being buried in krogan style, with gifts to satiate and pass by Kalros the everliving. He would sing what little of the great loresong he knew, the chants that would go on for a day and a night, with the bodies only being completely buried after that was done. He would ask the ancestors of Urdnot to guide their shadows into the next realm, and perhaps they would answer him.

Wrex knew none of that could happen until he'd dealt with the natives. And that was where his "gifts" would come in.

The complete tally of everything he'd gathered was less than he had hoped. But reentry would destroy most equipment so it wasn't exactly a surprise. Fourteen omni-tools, of which only three were unsecured and thus accessible, six sets of turian armour, of which seven were incomplete and three had spare parts. Twenty seven phaestons, because turians apparently felt paranoid even on a transport ship. Which Wrex personally approved of, but there were such things as limits. In any case, truthfully it was more like six phaestons, as twenty one would be apart of his gifts to the children.

There were however, several items he wished to keep for himself. A talon dagger, something he could actually use his biotics with. A disciple shotgun, hand made by the steelshape clans of Thessia, and more powerful even than his Graal, more useful as well, given that it would never run out of ammo.

But his greatest find by far had been on the elcor. The mercenary had been carrying all his belongings on his person, and while clothing and scorched weaponry were useless to Wrex, the elcor had something of infinitely greater value.

A complete omni-forge. A small version to be sure, not capable of crafting tanks or complex blueware, but still his single most important find. With the omni-forge at his disposal he could make nearly anything he could remember. Numerous weapons, advanced technologies the natives wouldn't have access to for generations. It would be something that, provided he could actually talk to them and wasn't killed on sight, would keep him useful in the long term.

The only problem...was that much of what it could create required eezo for components. Wrex didnt know how much eezo was on the planet, but it probably wasn't a great amount. He only required minuscule amounts to actually make components, after all he could melt just about anything into omnigell with the forge. But the eezo problem remained. After mining the damn stuff, the only large amounts in nature tended to be in... tended to be in the bodies of biotics.

Wrex looked at the pile of asari corpses.

The pile of corpses remained still.

Wrex looked to the omni-forge, and then back to the pile of asari bodies.

Wrex nodded.

 ** _32 Earth Hours Later_**

The natives sat around the table wrex had assembled from the elcor's armour. They were curious creatures, curious because they were near identical to the asari. The shape of the face, the overall body structure, ancestors even the **smell** , all were uncannily similar to the asari. Wrex was personally glad that they seemed to have a similar temperament, though perhaps slightly more violent, considering they'd brought weapons to a meeting. That was almost krogan actually. The only unusual thing about them was the copious and styled fur on their heads. The fur was styled in different patterns as before, and it probably meant something to the strange aliens but the subtle cultural differences were lost on Wrex.

Four of the natives sat directly in front of him. Each of them had pointed to themselves before speaking a word or two in their strange language. Wrex was lucky he'd been correct about that particular assumption when the female "Ruth" had introduced herself.

Unusually, it was the female who seemed to be the greatest soldier amongst them, possibly she was a battlemaster of some fashion given that what he assumed were the males had been taking orders from her. The other three humans in front were either scientists or their equivalent of shamen. Wrex thought the bald one with the darker skin was the most likely candidate for being a shaman, considering that he was the one which had made the most progress in breaching their language gap.

His omni-tool had been surprisingly useful for that purpose, the auto-translator it possessed had analysed the native language as best it could. Superficially it was most similar in structure to the Axxiostch dialect of T'volian volus. Which considering Wrex actually spoke common T'Volian was quite useful. The natives had been quite helpful after they grasped what he was doing, setting up a primitive screen, not a haptic one though so the quality was awful, which played their language, sometimes the language was followed by picture of the natives undertaking various actions, sometimes by objects. It'd been nearly half an hour, but he felt confident to actually attempt to speak something in their tongue. If the translator program messed up though, he'd strangle the ancestor cursed salarian which had designed it. Once he got off planet of course.

Clearing his throat, he glanced at the Korogorish script, slow enunciating the spelled words.

"Greetings, can you understand me?"

Almost as one, the natives attention focussed on him again. The natives began babbling amongst themselves in their high pitched tongue. It wasn't as bad as a salarian or turian talking, and certainly more graceful than that of the elcor, but it was still vaguely off-putting. None of the clearness and tone differentiation of proper Korogorish.

After a minute of conversing, the one Wrex had thought likley to be a shaman spoke, his words were far slower than previous, perhaps to prevent any misunderstandings.

"Yes we can understand you. Your name is Wrex?"

Well that was a relief. Maybe when he got off planet Wrex wouldn't strangle the salarian. Ah who was he kidding, he'd strangle the _liphar_ for selling such poor omni-tools anyway. Though now that he had a basic grasp of the natives language, it might be prudent to ask the strange furred asari some questions about themselves.

"My name Urdnot Wrex. What your...species name?"

This time it was "Ruth" who answered, her voice unlike most females, was actually of a higher pitch than the male. Or maybe he just had the genders mixed around and Ruth was a male of the species.

"Our species, human. What your species?"

Human. Wrex rolled the word about in his head for a moment. A interesting name, close enough to krogan. The language itself was easy enough, helped by the fact that it didn't have the number of intonations required for Korogorish. More importantly though...it was time to introduce the humans to their first contact. As Nahkmor Quarn had done with the salarians, Urdnot Wrex would do with the humans.

"I am krogan"

 ** _Intercepted Television Broadcast - 6th June 2041  
_**

The announcement would be taking place in front of the U.N building, the flags of over two hundred nations flapped in the breeze, a symbol of the unity of Earth. The gallery was filled to the brim, stretching even onto the streets and the floors of nearby buildings. Tens of thousands of people, reporters with their innumerable cameras pointing at the recently set up stage, ordinary citizens of New York and a thousand other metropoli, delegates from every single nation on the planet, including quite a few not recognised as such by others.

Gordon McDonald was but one such reporter. He'd been the American correspondent for his news network for almost five years now, reporting on the events in a timely manner, but hardly doing anything of actual importance. Now though? This might well be the most important recording of his life. He'd applied makeup, where normally he wouldn't, ensured his voice would be clear for when he spoke, gotten to the shooting sight within five minutes of its announcement so he could pick a prime spot. Anne was making the final adjustments on the camera, her Russian features crinkled in concentration. Normally she'd be making some remark about how people "texted" in her day, instead of all that "fancy schmancy" social media that news reports were often done on, but not today.

Around him, Gordon could see hundreds of others doing the same thing, adjusting their cameras, double checking their equipment. They all knew the importance as well. For the news industry, today would be their finest hour, weather be damned.

It took a few seconds for the crowd to realise the woman stepping onto the makeshift stage was the Secretary General of the United Nations. When they did however, the entire block went completely silent. You could have heard a mouse.

The short Uzbek lady reached the podium in good time, followed by a group of security, scientists and other U.N representatives. Upon reaching the podium, the Secretary General pulled a small piece of paper from her pocket, placing it upon the stand, she began to read, a hundreds of different translators on the ground making the speech available in all the languages of planet Earth.

"Four days ago, our world was changed forever, an age old question was kindly answered. We are not alone. An extraterrestrial craft crash landed upon our world. It saddens me, both as a representative of Humankind, and as a sapient being to report, that with a single exception, the entirety of the crew and passengers of that craft did not survive the crash. But thankfully, one passenger upon that craft did survive. Yesterday, a team of the finest diplomats and scientists our planet has to offer, made contact with this survivor."

At this audible murmurs of excitement began to appear from the crowd. The Secretary General raised her hands, and a single picture appeared on the massive screen behind her. A group of people stood outside what anyone who payed attention to the news would recognise as the crashed craft. But on their left, a massive lizardlike being stood in what looked to be a spacesuit of some kind. The alien was shaking hands with one of the people.

The Secretary General kept her arms raised, before yelling out to the world, a sentence which would change history.

"His name is Urdnot Wrex! And he comes in **PEACE**!" ** __**

 ** _AUTHORS NOTE:  
_**  
At around 6:42 today I realised that from three brief and relatively swiftly thought out chapters, I had managed to get three (And a bit) pages worth of reviews. I can't tell you guys how much it means that (At current count) **108** people thought chapter 3 alone was worth liking. As such, I am bestowing upon thee, as a gift of thanks, another chapter.


	5. Chapter 5 : History

_**A Krogan misplaced: Chapter 5**_

 _ **Crash site of the "Turning Wheel" - Former Bicentennial Park - Sydney - June 7 2041**_

  
As Urdnot Wrex finished the final line of chanting, one of the planets days and a night after he had started, he lowered his head in sorrow.

The children lay in their graves, the silence of death something Wrex was far to familiar with, even after a thousand years of life. Turian, quarian, asari and salarian alike in a long row of pits, with the exception of their faces they all were covered by dirt, gifts at their sides so as to placate kalros when they passed her on the way to the realm beyond, and weapons to fight in the endless city of Juakahre until the end of days arrived, whereupon they would do battle one last time.

Wrex made his way to the start of the row, and knelt beside the face of a young turian, not even old enough to have developed a crest. Muttering a short blessing, Wrex covered the face in dirt, to send the child to the realm beyond. Down the long line of bodies, several humans muttered blessings in their own tongues before doing the same. Wrex assumed they were shamen of some sort, they had robes certainly, and also possessed various items which probably meant something to the humans, deliberately shaped pieces of wood and metal for the most part.

Wrex repeated the process on three others before all the children in the line had been buried properly. Staring at the scene one last time, Wrex began to ascend the steep hill out of the crash site. The humans had a delegation of sorts waiting for him, dressed in what was quite similar to the krogan concept of a suit, and some trailing dresses that Wrex was used to seeing on asari. The male human at the front of the group gestured to the swiftly erected gigantic tent. Wrex gave what he now knew was the human gesture for yes, an awkward moving up and down of the head of all things, and proceeded into said tent with the rest of the group trailing behind him.

The inside of the tent was dominated by a small semicircular table, with numerous chairs set around it and a single, larger desk in front of it. Also present were several more of the primitive cameras which seemed to be recording the entire room. It took Wrex a few seconds to work out where he was supposed to sit, but one of the...what he guessed were servants pointed him towards the larger middle chair, which he realised had a curved back. As he sat down, Wrex noted that the choice of table might be deliberate, perhaps to signify that they didn't believe themselves to be above him? Wrex knew the asari and elcor liked to practice such things, but it would have been foreign to most krogan.

The procession that followed him in was a varied sort. The humans were a colourful bunch, not as distinctive as krogan but still better than the hangar or batarians when it came to distinguishing them from one another. The fur styles on their heads and the skin colour were the easiest by far to differentiate, which was lucky for Wrex as the fifteen or so humans which entered into the room couldn't be told apart by much else.

The humans walked to the various seats around the semicircular table, most glancing at him a few times as they sat down, small metal plaques being placed down next to each human had various words on them, which Wrex guessed might be their names, or perhaps who they represented. When the last one had sat down, the rest of the humans exited the tent, leaving them alone with Wrex.

For a few seconds there was silence, but then the human farthest to the left spoke. his voice gravelly and heavy with some tone Wrex couldn't identify, not helped by the fact that his head-fur extended down and covered his mouth, how he could even eat with that Wrex didn't know.

"Greetings Urdnot Wrex, we are the United Nations Security Council, we represent the vested interests of all humanity on this planet. We do apologise for the delay in speaking with you, but your... unexpected arrival has thrown global diplomacy into a degree of chaos."

Wrex was outwardly silent, but his mind was racing at the implications of what the human had said. His talks with the previous human, Ruth, had mostly been about his getting the language she called "English" onto his translator correctly. He'd affirmed some basics of what had transpired to bring him to the planet, as well as teaching the human a degree of Korogorish, and his explaining why anything they wanted would have to wait until the children...and only the children, were buried. But little had been spoke of politics or government. The words... "United Nations", they suggested the humans either were like the asari and acted as a confederation, or that they hadn't gotten past the period of nation states so famous in turian and salarian media. He hoped it wasn't the latter, if it was then the Council would pick it to pieces if they ever discovered the planet. Which was entirely possible, depending on how far from the nearest mass relay Wrex was at the moment.

It hadn't taken Wrex long to decide what he wanted to do after he'd talked to Ruth and confirmed that he was their first alien visitor. He was going to uplift the humans. But Wrex was going to be smarter than the salarians about it, he wasn't going to forcibly mould their culture into that of the krogan, nor was he going to use them to achieve some goal. Well, besides the obvious one. The thing that had convinced him to help the humans in the first place, the desire he possessed deep in his hearts, something no krogan had ever had the opportunity to do.

He was going to get _**revenge**_.

It would a century at least, it could take millennia. But if the humans got off their rocky planet, and they met the Council? They would be forewarned. The salarians wouldn't get to infiltrate the tech markets of the humans by posing as charitably intentioned galactic citizens, merely seeking to uplift the new race. The humans would be aware of the asari tactic of seeding biotic cults and ardat yakshi through opposing powers citizenry. The Council would meet a state which was forewarned of their tricks in advance, one which had been brought about by that lowest of races, the krogan.

Urdnot Wrex would bring about the rise of the humans, so as to get revenge for the krogan. But first he would have to ensure that no...weakness was available to prey upon in the human government. They would have to be united, truly united, if they wished to avoid being subsumed or broken from the inside.

All this passed through Wrex's head in the handful of seconds before he responded, trying to keep his mind on subject as the beginnings of a plan began to form. Clearing his throat, he addressed the "Security Council" in as neutral a tone as he could manage.

"So what do you want to know? History? Myself? The other races of the galaxy?"

His words caused a brief spate of conversation in a language he did **not** know, it sounded like an actual language though, tone and actual vocalisation being put into the words as opposed to the seemingly dullness of English. When it was over, a different human, a female this time, answered him.

"You mention other races... who are they? What are their governments? How many are there?

These humans were lucky they weren't meeting a salarian or an asari in this position, if it had been one of them speaking they might well have glossed over several aspects of Citadel history. Lucky for them, he considered himself better than the salarians. Wrex lent back on the chair, thinking of the best way to address the issue, before replying in what he hoped was a neutral tone.

"The galaxy can be roughly divided into three distinct power blocs. The Citadel, the Ascendancy and Aria. The Citadel Council is a three person dictatorship, they control roughly two thirds of galactic territory, and more than that in terms of population. The Citadel is based out of an old prothean space station, also called the Citadel, and six member races. Unfortunately for you, only three of those races actually have any representation in the Council itself. Those three are the asari, salarians and turians. Each of those races gets to appoint their councillor, gives a portion of their fleet and income to Citadel control. Theoretically its possible for any of the races to get a seat on the Council, but the elcor have had their embassy on the citadel for over two and a half of your millennia, and haven't gotten any further."

He stopped to let the humans absorb the information. If he had the right of their faces, then they were disconcerted. The woman who'd spoken turned to him again, before speaking.

"And the other two, this Ascendancy and Aria?"

Wrex gave a sigh. Of course they'd ask about those two. Still, no getting out of it.

"Aria is...complicated. My translator tells me the closest term to what she would be called is "Criminal Warlord". I actually know her personally, she controls a loose alliance of warlords, separatists, minor races and mercenary companies that make up what the galaxy calls the "Terminus Systems", conquered them about one of your centuries ago. She doesn't actually control too much in the way of territory or ships, but her defences and finances are vast, she's seen off the citadel fleet once, her fortress asteroid of Omega is practically invincible."

Wrex hadn't had the opportunity to see Aleema T'armal to much since they'd parted, the girl had grown strong for sure, and he'd been as surprised as anyone to see her face on the haptic screens when it was announced that Omega's management had...changed.

The humans seemed even more displeased at that announcement, several frowns appearing on their asari like faces.

Wrex continued on, the last part would be the most interesting after all.

"Finally you have the Hanar Ascendancy. The Ascendancy is... small compared to the other two. They don't control more than about ninety worlds, and they only have a single client race, the drell. Course they don't need to control any more than that when they're the single most technologically advanced government in the galaxy. The hanar essentially believe that the race whose technology most of ours is based on, the protheans, are their gods, and fortunately for them, they happened to get a jumpstart in leftover technology. Point is, they've fought the entire armed forces of the Citadel Council and defeated them, twice. Couple of events known as the Refusal Wars, Council attempted to invade hanar space and seize their prothean ruins, the hanar...took issue with that. I was actually around for the second, they parked an entire fleet outside Citadel Station itself, assassinated the councillors, and threatened to exterminate us if we didn't leave them alone. They're religious fanatics as well, the only way your species could get on the good side is if you accept their faith of the Enkindlers."

As Wrex lifted his right claw to scratch his armour, he noted that this time the humans actually looked positively ill. Oh he was going to have some **fun** telling them everything else.

Then the human who'd asked first spoke again, his face had lost colour in the time since Wrex had last looked, but he kept up the tone of voice he'd had before as he asked the next question.

"And may I ask where your race, the krogan fit in with this?"

Wrex chuckled, a deep ' **Hur Hur** ' that echoed in the tent, before responding, his voice tired compared to the previous minutes.

"Well...it begins about seven thousand years ago, in a series of events we call the Wars of Blood."

 ** _AUTHORS NOTE:_**

CHAPTER TIME! Woooohooooo!

All hail the UBER-Jellies!

On other notes, this is apparently my most popular story now. Huh.

EDIT: OKAY TO REMIND EVERYONE, there won't be no council bashing on any of that in this fic. I have standards, its just that much of the lore for this fic is based upon the LogicalPremise | FanFiction . Which is inherently a dark fic, with beautifully crafted lore. its not quite so dark as Premiseverse canon, but it is a darker shade of grey than canon


	6. Chapter 6 : Mystery

**_A Krogan misplaced: Chapter 6_**

 ** _The Afterlife - Omega - 1 standard week after the Turning Wheel vanished in transit_**

  
To the casual observer the famed Pirate Queen Aria t'loak was acting normally, well... normally by her standards at any rate. Of course seeing as how "casual" observers on Omega tended to disappear... and **if** they reappeared it tended to be in somebodies chop shop, the not so casual observers noted how the famed asari was acting outside her usual parameters.

She had exited her private quarters early in the morning, a slightly disoriented turian female with Fedorian markings leaving perhaps a half hour after that. The purple asari had then visited her de-facto command centre, apparently ordered a new cruiser, those listening had speculated it could be one of the Graceful Flare type light cruisers which were due to be decommissioned, but nothing further was known after that point by other parties, primarily due to the turian with the listening device having a sudden case of missing skull. Asari warp-swords tend to have that effect.

But the only person who was in a position to make a real judgement on whether or not Aria was acting strangely was her chief of security, and if Aerix Kuril had been asked, and possessed less in the way of self preservation instinct, he would have said yes.

He'd worked with Aria for the best part of twenty years, and in all that time hadn't seen her as agitated as she was now. The tics were subtle, she had checked her omni-tool more than usual to ascertain what her employees were getting up to, had actually bothered to decapitate the spy he'd uncovered personally, instead of leaving it to one of her lackeys, and perhaps most notably, Aria had summoned him personally when asking about the progress on operations, instead of just asking for a forwarded report.

And as Aerix stood in front of the couch Aria was reclined upon, waiting for her to ask him what she wanted rather than risk assuming something, he couldn't help but feel a twinge of fear at the unexpectedness she was exhibiting. At least normally he could tell exactly what would cause her to have somebody murdered. He should know, he'd done much of the murdering.

Eventually, Aria did glance up from her omni-tool, her voice deceptively calm as she spoke to him.

"Kuril, what's the status of the special projects?"

Aerix stood to attention before raising his omni-tool to show a series of graphs and statistics, keeping his voice in a tone reserved for business as he replied.

"The negotiations with Warcaptain Vrog are proceeding as planned, he should be agreeable to a compromise over the Tellix Belt palladium mines, if he isn't we have made some inroads with one of his subordinates by the name of Ymoosk. No Council patrols have made their way near our borders, though we keep hearing rumours of STG interference near the hierarchy borders, so its possible they're attempting to pull something. Barla has smuggled nearly fifty krogan off tuchanka, we're bidding for the contract, but Garm might also be bidding so its up to you whether or not we actually finalise it."

As Aerix pulled up the charts showing the increased production from Omega's eezo mines, Aria raised her clenched fist into the air, while to the average turian it would mean little, it was an asari sign for silence, and Aerix obeyed in an instant, his mouth clacking shut audibly. Aria simply sat up, leaned forwards, and spoke in a far harsher tone than before.

"And... what news of the investigation into the crash of _Turning Wheel_?"

Aerix clicked his mandibles lightly as he attempted to put the less ideal news of the day into a positive form.

"Our contact in the VDF reports as he did before, the ship went into the relay completely intact, stopped transmitting a signal halfway through transit, and didn't exit the other end of the relay. It's...possible that the ship merely hit a stellar body enroute, it would not be without precedence."

The scowl on Aria's face was something few people ever had the displeasure of seeing. Fewer people had the luck to see it twice, and this was only the seconds time Aerix himself had seen it. He was...worried.

"A well maintained ship with a paranoid captain, who is former STG, and with not only several associates of mine, but one of my few friends, goes missing in an event that has less than a million to one chance of occurring? I'll believe that when the tides dry in Armali and not a day before. **Somebody** , has caused that freighter to not make it to its destination, and until we find out who, that investigation will. be. continued."

Aria's scowl then turned into something even more terrifying. A small smile, albeit one which reached neither her eyes or crest, appeared on her face.

"Are. we. clear?

Aerix gave a submissive chirp and nodded, before walking out of the room.

-

 **Unknown Location**

The being standing in the room's centre was, at least outwardly, a salarian. Yet salarians, most curiously among all sentient races, do not live for a long time. This being, for no one, perhaps not even itself, knew for certain its gender, had been around for a minimum of three hundred years. Not once had natural light touched its face, nor water its skin, nor indeed food its lips. Yet this being, unnatural and artificial, controlled the single greatest intelligence organ in the galaxy.

The STG master pondered over the action it should take in regards to the evident provocation directed at the Union. The death of a Wheel Priest was not unusual. Like all salarians with the exception of itself, they aged and died. But they represented an important asset to the Union, for few other beings could predict the future with any degree of accuracy. There were not many of them, a fraction of a fraction of the salarian population were born with the capability to become a Wheel Priest, and even then, the vast majority of those were useless. Capable of being nothing but scattered images of no relevance

And it was supposed to believe that one of the few who could predict actions with any great depth of clarity, had died in a million to one event? Preposterous. The target had been well chosen too, with one of the few remaining scions of Urdnot Tharx being aboard the ship when it went "missing". A potential hint that would lead many to denounce the act as being the product of the STG, and allow the true culprit to slip away undetected. It was a cunning plan, but the suspects for who it could be were few. The Nightwind were perfectly willing to sacrifice individual agents to achieve a goal, as was the Shadow Broker, but neither had motives. Perhaps it could be the hanar? The ever watchful Ascendancy was certainly not averse to sabotage when the need called for it. But not a single drell of note had been anywhere near the freighter for almost five years.

The STG master finally made its decision less than ten seconds after it had started analysing the problem. It then sent a series of instructions to cells on what to do next, while planning the next moves in the ever present silent conflict with asari interests.

As its mind turned to other things, the STG master gave not a thought to the lives which would no doubt be quashed by its actions. It was of course programmed so such thoughts would be impossible.

 ** _The Broker command vessel - Halagaz_**

Nearly fifty seperate screens made up every single second of the life of the Shadow Broker. It was necessary, when one commanded the most powerful information brokerage in the galaxy, to be well informed at all times. Ever since the Broker had appeared as a distinct force in the underbelly of the galaxy, not once had the Network been truly ill informed on a subject. And if there was such a situation? It was rectified, and swiftly.

Only the strongest and swiftest of minds could handle the position of Broker, and many had over the years failed to be swift enough. As such, the true identity of the Shadow Broker, the most fearsome demon of the night to intelligence agencies throughout known space and beyond, would come as surprising to many.

"With clinical interest: Agent Ziphu, your report on the _Turning Wheel_ situation?"

The asari in front of the Shadow Brokers desk was a matron, a veteran of seven different conflicts, and discharged from the Republican Guard with the highest honours. The scars which covered her face gave one a hint as to her off the book experiences. One did not get scarred by hanar bioweapons on official business after all.

Yet to Zeltan, fifth highest of the Dekkuna courts, "he whom has memorised the lore of the ancients with pride", it was not particularly impressive. The Network possessed more unusual people by far.

The asari gave a swift formal bow in elcor style before speaking, her distinctive Illium accent colouring her speech.

"As you know sir, the official story is a load of shantha dung, exactly who blew up the freighter is unknown, especially given the variety of targets present. One of Urdnot Tharx's descendants, a high ranking Priest of the Wheel, two different clanless agitators. Even a former planetary primarch. I wouldn't be averse to suggesting that it could have been an accident that Agent Pyjak was onboard the freighter when it was hit."

The loud grumble of disagreement from the Broker silenced Agent Ziphu's voice in a heartbeat.

"With overwhelming scorn and disappointment: Are you suggesting that one of our primary coordinators was targeted by accident? This network does not deal in assumptions ms Devir. Contact Agents Ilios and Maw after we are finished, and inform them to retaliate against the Special Tasks Group within a solar cycle. I do not care how many cells we must eliminate to get the point across."

Agent Ziphu gave another bow before the meeting continued as normal. After she had left, Zeltan turned his attention once more to the numerous screens which demanded his attention. The requests were as varied as they were numerous, ranging from a corrupt C-sec officer requesting a higher cut of pay to let cargo onto the Citadel. He would be killed, you didn't make demands of the Network. To the Migrant Fleet's High Admiral inquiring as to the possibility of purchasing a New Liveship without council knowledge or interference. She would be acceded to, for a price.

It was almost two standard hours later when the Broker actually exited his quarters to relieve himself, something which he only needed to do rarely, and came upon a surprise in wait for him.

That surprise being a Disciple class shotgun pointed directly at his face. In the following two seconds, Agent Ziphu pulled the weapon's trigger. A thousand highly propelled shards of white hot metal the size of sand grains exited the barrel of the shotgun and flew towards him.

They all hit his personal shield and disintegrated. The look of shock on Ziphu's face, at seeing a weapon specifically designed for piercing shields, to fail so utterly, was to the Broker, hilarious. It was so hilarious that he actually took three seconds to laugh out loud while Ziphu attempted to short out his shields with warpfire hot enough to melt the hallway around him into a smoking mess.

It was an often overlooked fact in warfare. Size. Sapients tended to assume that the big one was slow and an easy target. The fools who had the misfortune of fighting the elcor military soon regretted that decision. After all, if you **can** equip a frigate scale barrier to yourself, why wouldn't you? The same applied to weapons. And the VI controlled dual barrel particle-packet minigun Zeltan kept hidden in his cybernetic arm was no exception. The storm of bullets hit Zephu like an aircar, pulverising her flesh and shattering her bones and internal organs before she was fully aware of what had occurred.

Zeltan, the Shadow Broker, simply turned around and called inwards to his quarters.

"With amused disinterest: Glyph, add another tally mark to the totem."

 **AUTHORS NOTES**

Concerned Statement : The previous chapter has been causing a degree of strife amidst the readership

Hopeful observation : Perhaps if I put out another chapter, people might accept the story for its merit in continuing?

Determined Declaration : Lets do this!


	7. Chapter 7 : Talks

**_A Krogan misplaced: Chapter 7_**

 ** _"Camp Enterprise" - former Bicentennial Park - Sydney - 8 days after landing_**

  
The quarters the humans had set up for him were surprisingly spacious. Far moreso than he'd had anytime in the last standard decade. They were hardly ideal of course, the bed was far too soft, the chair was almost as uncomfortable as the one in that tent, nothing to properly rest his hump on. But they'd taken the time to place his things there. Perhaps more importantly, the humans had left a collection of their literature.

The books ranged from tomes on the natural species of the planet, to their history, such as it was. Though Wrex noted that the histories only extended up to 1912, most curious. Some were stories of fiction, and clearly labelled as such on the covers, and it was those that Wrex was most interested in. The stories were curious, some could be roughly compared to his knowledge of his own peoples works. Titles such as Dracula, the Tale of Genji and Gullivers travels. But others...others he couldn't make heads or tails of. The purpose behind "One thousand and one nights" was completely lost on him. Why hadn't the girl killed the Sultan and stole his throne? Eh, humans were strange.

The music he'd had shown to him on the other hand was something fascinating. Wrex had always enjoyed music, it was something that allowed his mind to wander from past failures and regrets. The humans had created some interesting classical pieces that made getting to sleep simple enough despite the poor quality of the bed, songs such as "Twilight of the thunder god" and "War Pigs", which would probably make decent nursery rhymes. Nothing that was particularly blood pumping, nor anything he'd want for himself aside from what they called "Tuvan Throat singing" which was a work of art if he'd ever heard one.

But human literature and music aside, his talks with the group of humans known as the "Security Council" had gone particularly well. The group had listened to his recounting of krogan history quite attentively, and hadn't seemed as shocked as Wrex had expected when he'd gone over the wars of blood. That was...disquieting. It suggested that the humans knew of, or worse, possibly had even used nuclear weapons. If nothing else was going to be accomplished, then Wrex would ensure that the humans never got the idea into their small heads that nuclear warfare was a bright idea. **That** at least, was his duty.

But the grim smile which had been etched into the face of Urdnot Wrex for the best part of two days was for an entirely different reason. After he had gotten to the "uplift" and the rachni war, the humans had been understanding, impressed even when he described the rachni. But to them it had been just another war, if an important one in the scheme of things. Of course then he had explained to them the lead to the krogan Rebellions. The security council had been quite surprised at his honesty behind the reasons for the beginning of the conflict. Krogan desire to become a truly equal member of the Council, the salarian spurring krogan into taking asari colonies, and then realising their mistake when salarian colonies were also seized. The death of most calmer krogan leaders fighting the rachni, leaving nobody to politically oppose his greatsire, whose desire for power had become a thing of horror. But most importantly of all, foolishness. Foolish goals, foolish leaders in the wrong places, and the stupidity of a foolhardy krogan, had lead to the krogan rebellions.

Elaborating what he could with the help of his omni-tool, Wrex explained the horror of the krogan Rebellions in the fashion only one who had lived through them could. Atrocities such as asteroids being dropped on colonies, the utter disregard of both sides for civilian collateral damage, the waves upon waves of bitter assaults and defences that characterised the Rebellions. The actions of Warlord Okeer, and the slaying of all but one of the Urdnot Tharx's sons.

Then he told them about the ending phases. Of the turian entry into the war, of the tens of millions who died on both sides in the pointless bloodbath that was Elothai. Of course, then the subject of the genophage had been brought up. Wrex understood why the turians had used it, and certainly why Okeer had chosen it over a plague which would simply kill. It had done its job, the moral of the krogan forces disintegrated, the last few holdouts still took almost another hundred years of war to root out, ending with a simultaneous strike on the Kelphic clans by a War Priestess, and the last Warlord, Shiagur, falling to the turians at Canrum. Though Wrex hated to admit it, and he said as much to the humans, the genophage was initially a good, if horrifying idea, it had **worked** , where almost nothing else would have made the krogan surrender, the genophage had, and spared tens of millions of lives on the Citadel's side.

But after he explained what the genophage had caused, he revealed what it actually was. One in a thousand children would survive to adulthood, most would die in the womb, others to numerous issues which killed them less than a day after leaving their mother. Wrex showed them pictures of the pile of bones that dominated the old temple of Kalros, hundreds of thousands of young krogan skeletons piled up so high the roof was no longer visible.

Wrex had far to many of his own children in that pile. And for that he would remember. It was truthfully, the reason he hated the Citadel. Near two thousand human years, and they had done nothing, no altering of the genetic sequences to merely make the vast majority of krogan females infertile as the Council had initially claimed. They hadn't wanted the krogan to ever be capable of recovering, despite their 'promises' that it was only a temporary measure. Then they just left the krogan to **rot**. Not even caring to fix the damage to Tuchanka, only periodically stepping in and stamp down on any krogan leader who amassed too much power.

And for that? Wrex would have recompense. It wouldn't bring back his children, it wouldn't bring him closure, nor would it help the krogan. Not really. But... it was something, and Wrex would **never** become what his father had when he lost that sense of purpose, he was better than that. Or so he hoped.

The humans had been silent after he told them about the genophage, eventually they thanked him and said they needed to "discuss" the ramifications. Wrex would let them do that, he had to think through what he intended to accomplish on the, honestly rather nice, planet he had landed on. He'd have to give the humans his technology, as well as understandings of the concepts behind it. But something of much greater concern was on his mind.

The human government, what should he do about that? Should he attempt to spur it into unifying, so as to avoid the fractious mistakes the krogan had undergone? Leaving aside the fact that it was uncomfortably close to what the salarians might have done, Wrex just didn't know if he was the right one to do it. **If** , the humans listened to him, and **if** , the strangely asari-esque creatures didnt blow themselves up in the process, would it be right? Could he in good conscience allow a race that might be unready for it off their homeworld? Questions to pray to the ancestors everliving for, and things to think of in the long term. And he did have time, of that he was sure.

The only thing he knew for certain he had to do, was give them warnings of the council. It didn't matter if the two groups never met, nor if the humans joined the Citadel for some reason. They would be wary, an the Citadel would have a harder time than it expected, influencing a government which knew already some of their tricks. The chance to raise his crest in defiance at the council to that degree? That was a chance no krogan had been given since the rebellions, and Urdnot Wrex would take it.

Wrex had been sitting, thinking, for almost six hours before a knock on the prefab buildings door let him know one of the humans wanted to speak with him. They'd been very thorough when informing him of the customs of this part of their planet, so as to avoid any "mistakes" as they called them. If he was on Tuchanka, mistakes would have been part of the negotiation process. And so would fighting. Come to think of it in krogan "negotiations" there was very little actual negotiation.

Wrex pressed the button which opened the door to the sight of one of their "Peacekeeper" squads, he gave them a light nod as he stepped out of the prefab unit, walking to what his translator told him was their version of a sergeant, a fairly bulky being by human standards, and with an impressive amount of facial "hair" as the humans called their fur.

As Wrex allowed them to guide him to whatever talk they wished him to attend, he observed carefully their equipment. The armour they wore looked surprisingly hardy, even if it wasn't protecting he correct areas, nothing around the neck just to start with. Their weapons were different to the ones used by Ruth's group, instead of pistols they possessed what looked like extremely primitive assault rifles, and while Wrex didn't know if those could do any meaningful damage to his armour, enough of them could hit something valuable.

Moments like this were what made Wrex like the humans, they knew how to make an impression before negotiations.

Wrex entered the same tent as the previous meeting, but instead of there being multiple humans seated at the table, there was just one. As the "peacekeepers" filed around the edges of the room, Wrex took in the humans appearance as he walked over to the seat sitting opposite their table.

It was a female, the lack of facial "hair" and small body size left little room for it to be anything else. Older too, it's hair almost entirely white and the face covered in soft looking wrinkled skin. But the eyes were what gave Wrex the real insight into the human. They were staring right at him, no doubt attempting to glean what information they could before the talks began.

And a little less than ten seconds after Wrex had lowered his bulk into the chair, the hard eyed human did indeed begin to talk.

"Do your people have any particular ceremony or titles for greetings Urdnot Wrex?"

Wrex could recognise a leader when he saw one. It could be how they spoke, how they acted, even how they fought. The human in front of him was defiantly the first, a diplomat, how quaint. Still, it might pay to be polite. He needed to be liked by the humans if he was to guide them in any sort of fashion after all.

So Wrex gave what the humans called a "shrug" and spoke.

"Depends on the krogan. If I still led my clan you'd be expected to wait until I chose to speak to you. But I haven't led much of anything for almost three hundred years, call me whatever you'd call one of your people. It's your planet."

Leaning forwards Wrex met the humans gaze with his own.

"What should I address you as?"

The human female straightened, seemingly accustomed to this sort of talk. Perhaps she would be interesting after all.

"I am Secretary General Madina Niyazov of the United Nations. Madam Secretary is typically how my office is addressed."

Secretary General? That implied...many things. Maybe the humans governed themselves in a manner that was similar to the Court of Dekunna? Wrex sure hoped not, the elcor life masters were awkward as pit below to speak to. And that was when they weren't high as kites. Fortunately the human didnt appear to be on any substances, though given the fact that this was only eight days after he'd seen his first perhaps he should reserve judgement.

"Urdnot Wrex, I shall be honest, when you addressed the Security Council a few days ago, your words scared many people. The tale of your history has many suggesting we should void any attempts at space travel all together. What I would like to know, is what you think would happen to us if we were to meet any of those powers tomorrow, before I make a judgement on such."

Wrex actually stared at the female human for a few seconds before let out a low chuckle. If this was how all humans acted then he might actually like this planet. After he finishing, he placed his hands upon the table, after three hundred years it was time to do what he'd done best. Convince people to see things his way.

"Madam Secretary, unless my observations of your technology are incorrect, then your species not getting off this planet in significant numbers for fifty of your years, at **least**. Even if you do, then you're going to need to be lucky enough to have element zero in this system. Which you might, I don't know. By the time anything I say is going to be relevant, then the galaxy outside this planet is going to be completely changed, except **maybe** , the asari and hanar."

The Secretary General gave the human equivalent of a frown at his words, before abruptly stopping as she considered his words. Speaking slowly, she responded.

"You've mentioned this "element zero" before, during the first meeting, is it necessary for space travel?"

If literally any being in the wider galaxy had asked Wrex that question, he would have stood up and walked away. The mere concept of a sapient being so ignorant as to a basic force of the galaxy was inconceivable. Yet if he wanted his end goal to succeed, then he would know doubt have to deal with thousands of such questions. This was probably going to be a long couple of centuries.

Struggling to remember the days when he'd sat at the feet of his father, listening to the tutors of science, mathematics and rhetoric, Wrex furrowed his brow to find the appropriate words to describe the concept.

"Element Zero is what all modern technology in the galaxy relies upon. It powers our weapons, our technology, our starships and personal communicators. I don't know much about how it works, something about an electric current which causes the stuff to exhibit no mass while keeping its volume. Pit below it'd probably be easier for me to tell you what doesn't run on the stuff than what does."

The Secretary Generals frown at this point was dominating her face entirely, the female pressed her fist against the side of her head as she contemplated what Wrex had said.

"Is there any way you could...show me an example of such a technology?"

Wrex's grin was the kind of thing which sent hardened commandos and baby thresher maws crying to for their mothers. Given the slight look of shock upon the Secretary Generals face, it hadn't lost its luster. With a single thought, he commanded his will to **throw** one of the small boxes on the tents side. And as such was perfectly placed to be the first alien to get a view of a stupefied human face.

AUTHORS NOTES

The pile of bones is inspired directly from Abberons Living and indoctrinated dream, found at Living an Indoctrinated Dream Chapter 1: Fugue:Waking Dream, a mass effect fanfic | FanFiction .

WOOOO TWO WEEK SCHOOL BREAK...but I have four different assignments


	8. Chapter 8 : Discussions

**_A Krogan misplaced: Chapter 8_**  
 ** _  
Unknown Location - 14 Earth rotations after first contact  
_**

The arrangements for the meeting had taken the best part of a week to organise, time and indeed available personnel being scarce at the best of times. Eventually it had been agreed that the meeting would be on neutral ground as opposed to one of the numerous but somewhat ill-secured U.N facilities, and so the proper timetables were drawn up, orders were sent and general ideas assembled for what was sure to be one of the most revolutionary conferences in the history of humankind.

The room was very well designed, hundreds of metres underground and coated in lead, with but two entrances, enough armed guards event without the glut of assisting forces to hold off an army. " _Baba Yaga's Cauldron_ " was temporarily the single most important room in the entire world, not for its position or contents, but rather the group of distinguished people meeting within it.

At the bottom of the primary elevator shaft, through the series of defensible chokepoints and past the extensive cyberwarfare suit, lay a series of massive tables, which had seated along them hundreds of people. Despite being of all colours, appearances and ranks, the group seemed to only be truly differentiated by the flags they had pinned to their suits or dresses, for their faces were unilaterally cold, hard, and distinctly ambivalent of the morass of humanity surrounding them.

When the last group of people, a small number of men and women in matching black suits, sat down, the lights overhead dimmed, and the massive screen which filled the rooms centre lit up. Aside from numerous images of the past few days, of the assorted alien technologies and beings, the screen was dominated by a rather diminutive looking Chinese man, whose short beard was perhaps his most notable feature.

On paper Deng Shachi was the head of a portion of the Peoples Republic of China's Ministry of State Security officially titled "Department 14, Information Security Measures". On paper, the ISM had no powers at all, merely being in charge of updating and securing the necessary protocols for official communications. This included the Chinese internet naturally, leading many to assume the department held a degree of soft power, but little more. This was of course, on paper.

Unofficially, it was China's complete and comprehensive foreign intelligence agency, with a reach that extended across the globe, seeking to disrupt foreign influence in China, eliminate any threats to the sovereignty of the Peoples Republic, and ensure Chinese hegemony remained over East Asia.

For the man in charge of a such an organisation to leave his home country and attend such a meeting would probably have been a shock to the vast majority of attendants under normal circumstances. This meeting however, was being held due to normal circumstances having seemingly gone out the window, never to come back.

Counterparts from every intelligence service on that planet, from the European Task Force-9, the American CIA, and over a hundred others. Gathered in a single chamber whose very existence was unknown to the majority of officials, to do **something** , about the current clusterfuck the world appeared to be veering towards. After the final arrival had sat down in her seat and a series of assistants handed out the thin dossiers which detailed all confirmed knowledge of the "extraterrestrial situation", as it was being called, the massive metal slabs that served as the doors for the main room were shut, and the conference began.

The first person to stand up was the man who had called the conference, and as Deng Shachi set his cool gaze around the room, everybody fell silent.

"Before we begin, I would like to thank our compatriots at ASIO compelling as much of the data as they could in regards to the current situation. Without their efforts, we would be far less informed as to many of the finer details and their work is to be commended."

A series of appreciative nods and murmured acknolagments filled the wide chamber before silence fell again, and Deng once more began to speak.

"We are here today because as of two weeks ago, the squabbles and issues of our respective governments have become a insignificant concern. The information that we are no longer alone has proven, unfortunately, impossible to contain to any one source due to the public reveal of such. The world **knows** , that we are apart of something greater, and there is nothing we can do about that. What we **can** do however, is control the spread of more specific details of such information, and all of those details have been complied into the dossier in front of you."

Deng seemed to have a fire lit inside him at that moment, his tone growing firm as he continued.

"We have what is potentially the single greatest windfall in the history of humankind before us, a chance to determine how our species as a whole will go forth into the unknown, and that is the purpose of this meeting, to decide our ultimate course of action in this unique moment of history. Before we engage in any kind of formal discussions on the matter however, I would ask that we listen to our Australian counterparts analysis of all the information, so we may make an informed decision."

Once he finished speaking, Deng Shachi sat down in his chair, and an elderly balding man in one of the chairs across from him sat up, their image replacing Deng's on the screen. With a firm voice, the man looked down at his, notably thicker, folder and began to read.

"Thank you Director Deng, now our understanding on the current situation is based off a single primary source, and a single secondary source, while the ship itself and the items carried within it provide some corroborating details to both sources. The primary source is quite obviously the extraterrestrial being which calls itself "Urdnot Wrex", and it should be noted that his family name is actually Urdnot, apparently his species have a similar naming convention to many east Asian cultures. The secondary source is apparently an "offline" mode of what the galaxy at large calls the "Extranet". Our current supposition is that is is similar to concept though broader in scope to our own internet. This particular offline mode contains a copy of the "galactic codex", which has been translated by Urdnot Wrex into basic English for our comprehension, it's apparently an alien analogue to Wikipedia. Urdnot Wrex himself has described the Codex as "biased" due to its being written and maintained by one of the major polities we will be going over later on. "

Pausing to clear his throat, the man looked around the room briefly. Every single speck of attention in the room was directed at him, with not a single sound otherwise to be heard. Straightening, he continued.

"Firstly, Urdnot Wrex himself. He is a male member of a species the galaxy at large calls "Krogan", and according to himself is somewhere around twelve hundred and fifty of our years in age. This is apparently completely normal for his species, though apparently it is rare due to the overwhelming cause of krogan fatalities in the galaxy being "Death by gunshot". Urdnot Wrex claims he is a former Clanleader, and some information in the codex supports this possibility, mainly the fact that his name is mentioned on two occasions in said codex as being a descendant of Urdnot Tharx, the first and last krogan Emperor. He apparently gave up that pursuit at some point, because his occupation prior to current events was as a mercenary."

Numerous images and textual quotes began appearing on the screen, and a small murmur of conversation spread throughout the room before being silenced as the Australian spoke again.

"Urdnot Wrex has expressed interest in helping humanity, specifically a "united" humanity in any spaceborne ventures we decide to undertake. He himself claims that this assistance is being offered to prevent the polity known as the "Citadel Council" from suborning humanity into becoming a member species. We suspect given what both he and the codex have stated that this is to a degree, the truth. A secondary motive might be revenge for the Citadel's actions against his species or himself, given that he has stated he has lost numerous children due to our next subject of discussion, the genophage."

Most of the attendees to the conference had some idea prior to current events of what the genophage was. The initial negotiations between Urdnot Wrex and the Security Council having being fruitful with information. But the exact specifics of what it actually did, was unknown to all but a handful. Those handful had small frowns appearing on their faces as they recalled the memory.

"The genophage is some form of artificially engineered disease which was targeted at the krogan race during what the Codex refers to as the "Krogan Rebellions", where the expansionist Krogan Empire attempted to seize control of Citadel Space as a whole. The Council was apparently in a stalemate due to the near endless manpower reserves the krogan possessed. This is due to their biology, apparently a krogan female can produce several hundred young a year under the correct circumstances. The stalemate was ended when a combined strike on the Krogan Emperor and the releasing of the genophage was undertaken. The genophage itself alters the way krogan embryos are formed, causing the vast majority to die in the womb or immediately after birth, with a reported one in a thousand survival rate. This disease has been in effect for the best part of the last millennium, resulting in an apparent tremendous decline in the overall krogan population."

The reactions to the explaining of what the genophage actually was caused a number of people around the room to stiffen at the thought of what might occur if such a disease was released on Earth. But something that really stuck in most peoples heads was a single word. Artificially. That kind of disease could be created at any time, and there would be little humanity could do to stop it.

As thoughts went, they were fairly sobering ones. And the mood of the room reflected it, with frowns colouring the faces of the vast majority present.

The Australian looked about to speak again when one of the British delegation, a woman of sixty, on the far side of the table raised her hand for attention. After looking to Deng, the Australian gestured for her to speak.

"My government had been briefed on all this and more, an no doubt so have your own. But the primary issue here is that **if** , we do go into space, then we will doubtlessly come into contact with this Council at some point, or if we are unlucky, it could be one of the other powers, such as that "Pirate Queen" or the fanatical space-jellyfish that Urdnot Wrex mentioned earlier. At least the Citadel Council has been shown to be willing to negotiate. And if this genophage does exist, which all data suggests that it may be worse than initially conceived, then we may have no choice."

One of the Thai representatives stood up at the statement, his loud voice splitting the contemplative silence of the room.

"If we were to join this Council then we would become nothing but puppets to their wills! Urdnot Wrex has provided us with examples of what the two higher members of that Council were willing to do to get one over each other in their equivalent of the Cold War. Which is according to Urdnot Wrex, still ongoing. If we associate with them we risk being subsumed entirely!"

Murmurs filled the room as the assortment of intelligence operatives debated over the correct course of action. In the five minutes before anybody else addressed the group as a whole, Deng Shachi just sat in his seat, contemplating. Finally, he lifted his tired bones from his seat and spoke into the microphone on his desk.

"Ladies and gentlemen, if we are to accomplish anything at this conference, then we will need to display a degree of calm. We must not be hasty in our actions or declarations. Especially since we will all probably be dead long before this becomes our issue."

The room silenced once more and various attendees looked up from reading the folders as the Chinese man continued.

"What my government has asked me to present today, with the full support of Washington, Brasilia and the Kremlin, is directly due to the potential implications of our situation. Alien life has found us, not the other way around, and if it happened once it can and will happen again. The Americans have revealed suspiciously artificial looking indents on the surface of Mars, and my own government has authorised me to inform all gathered that we did recover what we now recognise to be fragments of a non0human space station ten years ago. If we remain disunited as this world comes to us, we shall shatter and fall, and the aliens will pick up the pieces."

The room considered the revelations which had been thrust upon them, and as the elderly head of Chinese Intelligence continued his speech, fire in his voice, appreciative nods filled the chamber. But not a single one was ready for the final words of Deng Shachi's sentence.

"Which is why my government is willing to accede to negotiations for the formation of a TRUELY United Nations."

 **AUTHORS NOTES**

Ehhhhh.

I'm unsure about this chapter, still, it had to be done. Can anyone suggest improvements?


	9. Chapter 9 : Subservience

**_A Krogan Misplaced : Chapter 9_**

 ** _-The Imperial Palace-Khar'shan-Throne Room-_**

  
The throne was a deceptively small thing. In stark contrast to almost the entire room around it, which was covered in mural glorifying the Dark Gods, various dented and well used pieces of weaponry or armour, and the personal crafts pieces of all the Emperor's prior, the throne itself was a rather dull and simple looking chair, appearing from the outside to be carved from a smooth if oddly coloured piece of rock.

Admiral Kai'Uthan Racek was, on a deeply personal level, fascinated as to how the first Emperor managed to shape the bones of a hundred kings into the throne. But personal fascination in the work of a man several thousand years dead was something useless, and Kai'Uthan had long ago learnt that useless things should never be kept around if it could be avoided.

What was of great importance however, was the being sitting on the throne in question.

The Imperial caste rarely reached particularly notable heights. Perhaps it was the result of so little intermingling with those outside it, or perhaps it was one of the numerous genetic enchantments applied to them over the generations. Either way, if he hadn't known exactly who the Batarian on the throne was, then he might have considered challenging him for his weakness.

The Emperors were many things, but they were **not** , weak in any way shape or form. Kai'Uthan had obtained some of the rare vid-footage of an attempted killing of an Emperor past, and watched as the equally slim Batarian tore his attacker apart, before plucking out and eating the eyes of his foe like some delectable foodstuff as the limbless wreck struggled on the ground.

Few things scared the Admiral of forty years, but what the Emperor would do to him if even the thought of treason entered his mind was one of them.

The figure on the throne raised its slim and sickly albino arm. The colour of the Imperial house, also of the entire castes skin. At the proffered invitation, Kai'Uthan raised his lower pair of eyes, leaving the upper pair pointed very firmly towards the ground. He could see the Emperors rows of jet black teeth quiver as the monarch considered what words the Dark Gods demanded he speak. Kai'Uthan waited silently as the living voice of the Darks Gods mused over the report handed to him not five minutes ago.

Finally, with the rasping whisper of a voice rarely used, the all highest spoke. The language of the court sounding archaic and regal to Kai'Uthan's hearing.

 _"Low servant of the endless sea, your report details many things that interest our high thoughts. We accept your supplication of you and all your house with swift obedience."_

  
Kai"Uthan bowed once more from his position kneeling on the floor of the throne room, his upper pair of eyes almost touching the floor as he spoke, trying to remember the nuances and required tones of court, for one mistake could mean his death.

 _"Greatest and most prudent high one, master of masters, holy and undisputed messenger of the Dark Gods, we do submit ourselves to your highness in reverence for your eternal and unwavering wisdom. We apologise for interfering in your most precious time, yet it had come to our attention that several fleet movements were not as they should have been. We suspect that heretics are attempting to usurp your most rightful and earned place as messenger."_

  
He didn't know what he had been expecting, Kai'Uthan's golden skin, a mark of his High caste, was dark in fear as the being on the throne considered his words. The armoured Batarians at the rooms side, ceremonial armour and arms of the Imperial guard at the ready, seemed to be a lot more dangerous now that Kai thought about it.

Finally, the Emperor's mouth closed and the jet black teeth over it flexed. Kai was confused at the obvious display of mirth, then he thought about the possibilities, and felt his heart almost stop.

The fang filled mouth opened once again, as the Emperor spoke.

 _"Low servant of endless sea... we believe you may be due a...sudden promotion."_

 **-Thessia-Serrice-Unnamed office building-  
**

The dimly lit room was, perhaps in stark contrast to the beings inside of it, a reminder of the new. It had been constructed in the recent population boom three hundred years prior following the curing of "Pel's Syndrome" by the house of T'Rome. The sudden boom still in the memories of most inside the structure was a fond memory.

What had followed...was most decidedly not.

The asari inside were all clearly matriarchs, their elongated crests highlighted by a variety of tattoos, facepaints and the occasional cybernetic implant. The twelve who had gathered were some of the most respected clanless in the entirety of the Republics. Businesswomen, successful inventors, even a noted archaeologist who specialised in Prothean studies.

All of them were gathered into a single room, for a single purpose. A purpose which could, if successful, be the crowning achievement for all of them. And yet they had to do so in secrecy. The piece of, astonishingly, actual paper, covered the length of the table, and was inscribed with the series of demands that if published could change the entire history of the asari people.

 _Demand 1: The end of discrimination as a whole against the clanless of the asari republics, including the placements and promotions of fleet captains, business contracts and important personalities._

 _Demand 2: The Elevation of a "Circle of Clanless" to the equal rank of the Circles of clans and the Thirty Families. The Council would be selected from amidst the Matriarchs of Clanless origin, provided they fit a set of criteria_

 _Demand 3: The end to restrictions on the Immigration, Emigration and changing of social status that the Clanless had been previously subjected to._

 _Demand 4: The investigation into the suspicious deaths of several notable Clanless matriarchs, stretching as far back as the Krogan Rebellions_

 _Demand 5: The removal of the Thirty Families's immunity to investigation by the Justicar order without prior knowledge._

Five demands, simple demands, which when published across every major news site and talk show would wreak merry havoc upon the framework of asari society, but would enable the Clanless to feel as equals. If it worked, hence the meeting they were at, one of three final ones before action would be taken.

Matriarch Illai Y'thune glanced around at her fellow idealists. The declaration of the document was almost at hand, and now they just had to ensure that things went smoothly. Turning her head to her right, she addressed Teka Jaanae the fellow leader of the little group she had gathered.

"Teka, are we still on schedule for the grand event?"

Her fellow matriarch nodded, the purple tattoos highlighting the pebbled pale blue skin which defined the woman.

"I've talked to the Devir woman, all she knows is that we have something..."special" planned to be announced in a few months."

Nine of the other ten asari in the room made Siari gestures of affirmation, their smiles showing the excitement they felt at years of planning finally coming to fruition. But one amongst them had a distinct frown on her face.

Ythone Dantius tapped the table lightly, causing it to shudder as it reacted to the biotics surging through the metal. Illai stretched out a hand to indicate she should speak.

The oldest Matriarch in the group glanced around the room before she spoke, her thousand cycles of life showing on her weathered face, and in her weary voice.

"That was a foolish decision, letting the Thirty have any indication that we are planning anything at all is like jeering at the Olan before turning your back on it, they may pay attention to your dealings now, and that means they may pay attention to **all** , of us."

As the old Matriarch glanced around at her fellow Clanless, she found, no doubt to her surprise if her face was anything to go bye, that all the other Matriarchs were looking at her with a mixture of scorn and amusement.

As the elderly Matriarch opened her mouth to no doubt speak her mind on the subject, with Illai about to intervene before things got out of hand, the entire room froze.

It took Illai less than a few seconds to identify the effects of **_stasis_** , which was of no help to her at all.

For she could see the door open, and the black armoured figure with a warp sword enter the room.

 **-Tuchanka-Ruins of the temple of Kalros the Everliving-  
** ** _  
_**  
The krogan who entered the shrine was even at first glance very, **very** old. The most obvious indicator of his age was his enormous hump, which had grown so high that he was forced to almost bend forwards just to accommodate it. The dusty plate he possessed, riddle with symbols in a language long forgotten even to most krogan, and large enough that most krogan women would consider it a fair indicator of the potency of his genes, was another.

But the one true thing which set the krogan apart from the rest were the clothes he wore. Decorated in symbols and old korogorish script, the robes of the shaman indicated that he was, at least in the eyes of the ancestors, enlightened.

Once, perhaps he'd had a name. He couldn't remember it for the life of him, he hadn't used it in nearly seven thousand years after all, a casualty to the sacred neutrality that a shaman had to possess, for none of them could claim allegiance to a clan. As he walked through the decrepit archways of krogankinds largest and most magnificent temple, a shrine to all that was sacred, he felt the memories reach for him. Yet he dismissed all but the important ones as he walked with purpose towards his goal. For the decision about to take place in the temple shouldn't be tainted by those long dead.

A thousand generations of krogan had come and gone before his eyes. He'd pulled the wailing pups from their mothers, naming them as was custom and ensuring that they were strong, and ensuring those who weren't lived long enough to become strong. But for the past thousand years his job had been aching on both his hearts.

The genophage, that cursed thing, had turned the job of a shaman from one to be revered and respected, to one which was feared, and reviled. For what krogan wanted to put to rest in the next realm thousands, upon tens of thousands, upon hundreds of thousands, of tiny little corpses.

He had needed to change the rituals, to entomb them with sharpened rocks and sticks as "weapons" and what little food and wealth he could spare as "gifts". By all his ancestors and those who guarded the next realm, he hoped his gifts had been enough, the singing to distract them actually **standardised** , instead of being tailored to allow them to sneak past individually. He didn't want to think about what would have happened if his efforts weren't enough. If they couldn't get passed Kalros the everliving.  
 ** _  
_**  
The Shaman took a right turn through the narrow series of passageways which led to his destination, the heavy bag he carried a testament to his strength which he still retained even millennia after his brother had crippled him in combat, and exiled him to the order of shaman. The leg had taken almost a century to regrow after all.

When he reached the room he was after, the shaman gave a small sigh of despair, he had after all, hoped that the day would never come.

The bones were piled to the rooms almost invisible ceiling, the corpses of uncounted krogan, resting in peace alongside each other, heedless of clan or krannt. These were adults of course, the bones of the uncounted pups rested almost in three seperate rooms, each bigger than the one he was in. No, the bones he viewed were in most cases krogan he had met, befriended, fought with. Raised.

It somehow made it worse.

Giving a low keen of sorrow, the shaman knelt on the ground, placing his bag in front of him. Unzipping it, he reached in with one claw and brought out the single polished stone, it was the size of a ripe klixen grub, and on it was engraved a single name.

The shaman reach a claw into the bag again, pulling out the boys first weapon, an old Graal Spikethrower, which was covered in engraved flowers and other such philosophical nonsense the boy had gotten up to in his youth.

For a final time, the shaman reached in, before pulling out a pair of rare blood emeralds, the veins of orange striking through the gems core.

The shaman placed the gems alongside the Graal, before grabbing the stone in both hands and turning the name to face him. The engraved name saying more than he could. _Urdnot Wrex._ Looking downcast at the stone, the shaman spoke the first thing which came to mind.  
 _  
_  
"You foolish boy."

Gazing up at the pyramid of krogan bones, the shaman of clan Urdnot spoke. Perhaps to himself, perhaps to the sprits of those present.

"I know you can hear me boy, the spirits of your ancestors haven't failed me yet when it comes to communing with those gone to beyond that veil. You were our best hope, the only one of your fathers moronic spawn to show his brilliance. You could have led us to greatness, I always thought you'd return after you calmed down. I knew it might take a few centuries, by Kalros I was willing to wait a thousand years if you'd stop thinking about yourself and grew up,"

Giving a small glance to the gifts at his knees, the shaman of Urdnot spoke again. His voice showing what little emotion a shaman was permitted.

"We're doomed now boy, none of the others have your spark, nobody else, most certainly not your foolish brother, can see what you saw. They weren't willing to change, to adapt... Why didn't you come back you foolish child."

The Urdnot shaman carefully inserted the stone into the midst of the many skeletons of warriors past, followed by the Graal, with the two blood-emeralds being placed in afterwards. Then he covered the stone in the bones of the long fallen, careful to leave not a piece showing, for he had already sung the songs for a day and a night.

"May you find something better beyond, little pyjak. Whatever we felt in life, know that your grandsires brother misses you in death."

As the Urdnot shaman raised himself to his feet, a inkling of an idea formed in his head. If nobody was willing to make the changes Wrex had sought after, perhaps he could do something about that.

By the time he had left the temple altogether, that inkling had turned into a persistent thought. Wreav was no different to the previous succession of idiots who'd ruled Urdnot, his brother included. He wouldn't ensure the survival of the krogan, somebody had to.

By the time he arrived back at the Urdnot clan proper, he had made a decision.

The next day, the clan stood in shock as the Shaman challenged Wreav for leadership of Clan Urdnot.

 **AUTHORS NOTES**

Whoop whoop! I'm feeling in a writing mood!

And uhh, this was literally cooked up in two hours. If you guys spot any spelling mistakes (There are going to be a few) please tell me so I can fix them.


	10. Chapter 10 : Observance

**_A Krogan misplaced: Chapter 10_**

 ** _Terrence Lawson memorial stadium - Canberra - Two weeks after landing_**

  
As the sun rose upon the seats of the Terrence Lawson memorial stadium, the rays of light illuminated not the usual stillness and peace of the sporting ground. Instead, the light was shone upon a buzz of activity more akin to a jostled hive of ants, for the stadium was filled to the brim with peoples of all descriptions and jobs setting up for the single most important event yet to grace the massive structures history.

And if Adeline Lambiere was honest, she was but one mere ant in the scheme of things, but an ant with a significant role. For she had been selected as one of a small group of reporters to be at the event, officially it was the "Extraterrestrial Information Conference", but to Adeline it was just "the event". Her network had been contacted by the U.N, apparently the Alien which had arrived was willing to address the world, with some set questions of course, and Adeline could remember vividly which ones she was supposed to ask, the U.N guy had been quite clear on that.

"The Alien", "Urdnot Wrex", "Turtlehead Mc'ninjaface". Whatever you called him, the face of the first...well...probably the first, alien to ever step foot on planet Earth was recognised by anyone with even the most basic of access to the web or television, which in modern times was almost everyone. The image that had been posted across a thousand media sites, of an almost lizard like being with eyes on the side of its head, staring up at humanity with red eyes and what could only be described as a scowl on its face.

The talking had begun within hours, and after it had been confirmed, it had grown exponentially. At work, on the bus, at events relevant and irrelevant. All anyone could seem to talk about was the arrival of the alien, and what it meant for humanity. Some panicked, some didn't, some bought survival equipment and food, others sought solace in faith.

Then, but a few days later, the Secretary General had said that the alien, whose name was Urdnot Wrex, had come in peace.

Everything before that point had been as a ripple before a wave, governments hadn't publicly acknowledged anything, which caused many to doubt, and many people were wondering if it wasn't just some hoax or something weird...hell maybe some government was just doing some weird experiment with lizard people. Then the U.N General Secretary along with the head of every single government on the planet...including the Korean Empire and Vanuatu, had essentially said "Yep, aliens. But they come in peace."

The collective gasp at the confirmation that humanity wasn't alone in the universe? As a reporter, Adeline had to admit that was something to behold. Alien conspiracy theorist were relishing at the first attention they'd gotten in years, Adeline's friend in NASA reported that everyone was collectively cowering at the enormity of the task that was to approach them, the damn Pope had called a great council of all christendom, and even the church of Latter day saints and Peoples Catholic Church of China had agreed to attend. Whilst similar situations were occurring with Islam and Judaism in the middle east.

And the cause of all that, the being known as Urdnot Wrex, had agreed to give a basic T.V interview so as to answer questions the world had, and Adeline had been invited. She was so going to tweet about the entire event later.

As Adeline glanced behind her, she could spy the cameraman through the throng of entering guests, some of whom must have paid thousands for the seats, and raised her hand in the "is everything okay?" signal. As Ahmed gave a thumbs up in reply, Adeline turned to face the set up stage where the Alien would be appearing, mentally running through the questions she had been given to ask.

Once she was satisfied, Adeline turned to face the camera, flashing her brightest smile at the no doubt enormous audience which was tuned in, and waited.

Fifteen minutes later, after double checking and triple checking that everything was working correctly, and just having finished a conversation with one of the other reporters who wanted her spot (she wasn't giving it up though), the crowd abruptly silenced, and Adeline got the first view of the alien, walking up to the stage.

The being she saw was far greater in stature than any human could be, nearly three metres in height and looking wider than most doorways, Urdnot Wrex sure knew how to make an impression. Adeline was high enough that she could see the reaction of the crowd as he passed them. Many in the higher rungs possessed binoculars and were using them to get better views, some gawking and pointing, others looking like kids with candy. Each reaction was unique, and yet in some way they were all the same.

When the tall being finally reach the top of the stage, he sat down in what looked to be a...beanbag chair? Some kind of chair which absorbed wight at any rate, as the massive alien sunk a fair way into the chair, his hump keeping him upright and straight. Adeline looked back to Ahmed, to check if anything was wrong one final time, as he gave a nod, Adeline flashed a smile and turned towards the stage, ready to ask her assigned questions.

If Urdnot Wrex was honest with himself, all humans looked the same. Oh there were easy ways to distinguish some, the colour of their skin, the shapes of their...hair. Amongst other things, but if two humans with similar enough appearances walked into the room he'd have to use his nose to tell the difference. Not that it would help him here, seeing as how the crowd of humans was easily a fifty thousand strong.

Nevertheless, Wrex consoled himself with the fact that he only had to ask questions of the specific group of humans with the primitive cameras, which was easy enough given the size of the things. Wrex was kinda glad that they weren't the flying types though, the things a decent drone operated camera could catch were reason liaisons on the top levels of skyscrapers had stopped being a common occurrence, much to the disappointment of asari galaxy wide.

But by the far the most important thing to happen to Wrex in the previous two days had been the food situation. After much trying, scanning with omni-tools and taking of small bites, Wrex had been pleased to discover that he could eat human food. After trying something called "peanut butter" which was quite admittedly disgusting, he'd found some acceptable substitutes to cover his rations and make them...technically edible. "Vegemite" actually went quite well with "Haddan's canned algal supplement".

Much more importantly than that though, humans were also fans of alcohol, and that meant he finally had a use for his brothers homemade ryncol recipe. He'd need to find cyanide somewhere, and distilling the alcohol would take well over a human year, but the prospect of having actual ryncol, and not just the stuff aliens tried to pass off as ryncol, was an exciting one.

As Wrex gazed around the...arena? That he was in, he took in the massive crowd once more, giving a small sigh, and a prayer to Kalros the everliving that if he pulled off what he was hoping to pull off he'd give proper offerings, he tapped the table he was sitting at three times, and waited for the humans to quiet down. This was a chance for an entire species to view his people as allies and potential friends, he wouldn't, no, **couldn'** t mess this one up. He wasn't going to be his grandsire if he could avoid it.

It took a few minutes for the excitable humans to finally stop talking, and when the buzz of the gathered mass died down to little more than a whisper, he lowered his head to the microphone in front of him, deliberately facing the hoard of cameras. Time to put those rhetoric skills that his father drilled into him to work.

"Greetings humans, my name is Urdnot Wrex. It is my honour to be here in this solar cycle and meet your species, for after the crash landing which unfortunately caused the deaths of all other passengers aboard the ship I was traveling on, and assisting me in burying those unfortunates with all the proper rites. I must also thank your United Nations has allowed me to stay upon this planet until such time as your species itself achieves viable interstellar flight."

The audience remained silent, seemingly enamoured. Hopefully he didn't sound as ridiculous to the humans as they did to him, with high voices and odd intonations on what little korogorish he'd taught the linguistics expert Dr Al-Saud. After waiting for a moment to let his words sink in, Wrex continued, trying to keep his voice as level as possible.

"You are not alone in this galaxy, there are other species beyond my own and many worlds which you could potentially settle. In thanks for sheltering me until I can return to the wider galaxy, I will assist your species in advancing itself how I can, and hopefully, one day, your kind may walk the stars as equals."

Clasping his claws together in the traditional manner to end a speech, Wrex gave the human equivalent of a smile, showing his teeth a little but not to much, and raising the ends of his lips.

"Any questions?"

The roar that sounded was deafening, even the humans on a lower platform clasping their ears as a torrent of noise impacted them and their ears adjusted. Wrex had heard worse, that sonic grenade he'd taken to the ear when fighting Aleema that one time coming forefront to his mind. Raising his claw to quiet the noise at least to a degree, he pointed to one of the reporters, the human being most easily distinguished from the others by the strange headers it wore, and the long beard. Also he had a sword at his side which was something Wrex could appreciate.

"Yes, you have a question?"

The human visibly straightened as he answered Wrex, the white robes he wore accentuating his difference amongst the crows of similarly dressed media personal.

"Manuel Singh mr Urdnot, may I ask you what the name of your own species is, and the name of your home planet?"

For a moment Wrex paused, before inwardly cursing. He knew he'd forgotten something.

"My people are known to the galaxy as the krogan, we originated on Tuchanka, in the Arlakh system."

Wrex had a feeling he was going to be answering a lot more stupid questions as the day went on.

 **Shadow Broker Vessel-Halagaz-**

The once mighty command chamber of the Shadow Broker was a wrecked and warp-blasted ruin. It didn't actually matter as far as actual systems went, haptic screens could survive most things that an organic could, and quite a few things an organic couldn't. Nevertheless, the shattered and ashen furniture which had once dominated the room was most certainly damaged beyond repair, not that the previous owner would be doing anything about it, seeing as how they were...very much deceased.

The titanic corpse of the elcor once addressed as Shadow Broker was a terrifying thing indeed, the bulk of his body was bubbled and half melted from warpfire, while those parts which weren't were covered in enough holes to effectively use a substitute for a strainer. None of those factors caused the death of the mighty elcor, for his cybernetic ally enhanced body and systems, while possibly being pushed to the limits by such damage, may well have continued on.

The warp-sword which was embedded into his skull on the other hand, was most definitively not survivable.

Standing to the side of the fallen giant was an asari fiddling with her omnitool. If one didnt know better, it could be assumed that she was perhaps a veteran commando, perhaps a particularly effective mercenary. Those who knew better though, they'd recognise the signature all black armour, the scabbards for two seperate warp-swords, and the unfortunate silhouette of the "Spear of Athame" rifle, and typically back away.

To trifle unprepared with a Black Blade after all, was either suicide or desperation. As the mercenaries and oddities guarding the Shadow Brokers ship had learnt the hard way.

The asari in question, after a bout of cursing, and a third swig from the Brokers private supply of liquor, finally entered in the comm code she had been searching for. Grinning, the asari leaned against the still cooling corpse before speaking, her dry tone colouring the otherwise normal conversation.

"Hey Nezzy...no I know you're at a meeting, but I finally did that job i'd been talking to you about."

The grin turned into a slight frown as the asari on the other end raised her voice.

"What no its not like th-...Okay so its like that, but thats not the point!"

The frown shifted into a wry smile as the familiarity of an age old argument distracted the black armoured asari from the world around her.

"Oh look on the bright side Nezzy, I just got us a new place to live in, you'll love it."

Switching off the comm system, Matriarch Aethyta whistled the tune of her dad's favourite war song. Tomorrow was going to be fun after all.

 ** _AUTHORS NOTES:  
_**  
Wrex isn't just a normal Krogan! He's a former politician!...and a pretty bad one...*Shivers*

But yeah, this is...well nearly a week in the making.


	11. Chapter 11 : Moving

**_A Krogan misplaced: Chapter 11_**

 ** _"X-compound " -Australian Outback - 19 Days after landing_**

  
When Urdnot Wrex had said that he would only help a "United Humanity", he hadn't expected the humans to come back within nineteen of their cycles and claim they'd done it. It took a fair amount to get an old krogan to double take, but when the Secretary-General of their United Nations had said "we fulfilled your condition of aid" like it was an everyday occurrence Wrex had done just that, to the female's seeming amusement.

Wrex had thought it might take decades, pit below it could have taken centuries and he would have been happy. But the humans had managed to get a very basic accord drawn up (In secret, as the majority of their population was being kept unawares.) in less time than it took some sapients Wrex knew to even start negotiations. Aleema was, despite all her ruthlessness, something of a showoff.

It was...strange, to see a young species cooperating in such a manner. It'd taken his grandsire almost three centuries to fully unite the clans in even a vague sense under Urdnot. Three centuries of fighting and negotiations and talks which had resulted in what could be loosely termed a "confederation". Oh the salarian arrival may have secured his position and solidified his unofficial role of emperor, but the groundwork had taken thirty generations of krogan to even begin. Then again, the humans seemed to be listening to his advice when he'd been talking about krogan history. Wrex was relived that they weren't going to do this quickly, who knew what could go wrong with that after all.

The accord itself, or its outline at any rate, called for a gradual unification of the various already present coalitions humanity was divided into. Solidifying the structures until such time as they actually ruled the nations which comprised them. At that point, the coalitions would merge into a loosely controlled unified human state. The timeframe for the plan was something like 50 human solar cycles, almost half of the average humans lifespan. That, above almost everything else, indicated to Wrex that the humans were serious about the idea.

Which was good for the little pyjaks, he wasn't going to help them otherwise.

As his thoughts drifted to other topics and old memories, Wrex was jolted from his thoughts by the sudden stopping of the truck he was in. The massive vehicle was similar in design to a Tomkah, all wheels and armour plating. It even had had a decent cannon unlike most vehicles the humans produced, and while Wrex thought that making a vehicle without at least keeping the capability to place a weapon on it was stupid, the humans were apparently used to such things so he'd have to accept it.

As the trucks engine cut off, the massive loading door, which had been necessary to fit the omni-forge through, opened to a sudden rush of **heat**. It felt like a wave of hot air rushing past as Wrex stepped outside, glancing around the barren wasteland he found himself in. Theres wasn't a plant to be seen, nor a cloud in the sky to shield Wrex or the humans from the oppressive waves of heat. The only sign of civilisation was a squat compound which the truck had pulled up in front of.

Wrex hadn't been to Tuchanka in almost a hundred years, but he could still remember what it felt like to stride over the holy ground of Kalros. This? This felt just like home. Of course it lacked the radioactive dust storms and the air wasn't attempting to constantly corrode his lungs, but Wrex would have to make do.

The aforementioned squat compound on the other hand...well, if Wrex hadn't been asked about where the humans wanted to set up their little "Extraterrestrial Research Institute", and then been given a overview of what the buildings would look like? He might have assumed it was just some bunker. But the humans seemed to be trying to impress him, because under his feet was no mere bunker. No the humans had made what was quite possibly the single most paranoid security system Wrex had seen since that one time he broke into an STG lab. Even then, some of the traps the humans had listed as being used were just **vicious.**

  
A shame they'd had to disarm most of them since Wrex was going to be essentially living at the base, and some of the objects about to be stored there were quite literally irreplaceable to the humans, but it was the thought that counted.

The squat top level of the base was just the entrance, the real stuff was dozens of levels lower in the labyrinth of tunnels, rooms and passageways. As for who would be manning the base, the humans had assembled a number of great scientists, or what passed for a scientist on the dirtball of a planet. The scientists and engineers were, as a part of the little treaty Wrex had argued for them to get going, from just about every one of the numerous nations that spanned the planet. The same could be said for the security forces, including the apparent air base he could see being constructed in the distance.

What interested Wrex the most though, was the "PR" team. The human Secretary General, had been refreshingly straight forward for a politician. Though Wrex supposed her role was closer to that of a non violent Warlord, what with uniting the clans and all. The female had stated that they wanted Wrex to be the face of non humans on the planet, and that was most easily accomplished by...politics and speeches. There were several arrangements for meetings with numerous human leaders, including their religious ones. Which Wrex was sure would go completely fine. Not. He just hoped the humans weren't to preachy.

Still none of the proposed meetings could be as bad as the conference he'd had to do. That had been so boring, with humans asking dumb questions about obvious things. The number of times he'd had to explain a basic concept like eezo was astounding. It was worse than the Citadel. Or not. Actually the hanar were more annoying than even the dumbest humans he'd seen so far when it came to unimportant questions, so the Citadel was definitely worse.

One of the things the humans had insisted on that Wrex had thought was ridiculous on the other hand was the need to put bodyguards with him. Never mind the fact that if something this planet had could kill him then humans guards would be pointless. Wrex had eventually acquiesced so as to avoid the humans going into another cycle long talk about why they were right. He supposed it couldnt hurt after all, but if Wrex was going to have the human version of a Krantt around him for all the foreseeable future, then he'd have to get to know them. Now that, that was going to be awkward.

But as Wrex strode towards the squat building which was the entrance to the base, the two humans, one fairly large and another who seemed oddly twitchy behind...her? gas mask. Wrex could only tell because of the slight twitches his eyes were picking up in their reflections. Compared to the otherwise stoic beings he'd previously seen amongst the soldiers the humans could offer it was good to see one who was at the very least, constantly alert. A good trait when forming a Krantt actually...

After a short walk into the building proper, Wrex allowed the larger of the two humans to show him to the elevator. That was something Wrex was surprised the humans had, he'd initially pegged them as to primitive to have yet reached space, though upon seeing some of their absolutely **wonderful** tanks, that opinion had changed. Unfortunately for Wrex, the elevators were **exactly** , as slow as the ones on the Citadel. But as the clunky piece of tech slowly made its way down the shaft, Wrex glanced from side to side. Giving a small huff of exasperation, he decided it was better now than never.

"So uh, do you two have names? Or am I supposed to call you by those aliases given earlier?

Wrex could hear the slight creaks the pairs armour made as two heads turned to face him, they remained silent for a moment, Wrex continued to stare at the elevator door away from them, awaiting a response. Finally, the larger one opened his mouth behind the mask, his tone of voice soft like velvet as he began to speak.

"My name is Edouard Levy."

The twitchy female just gave a small sniff as she started to play with the hilt of her...well Wrex supposed it might be called a sword to the humans, but really it wasn't big enough to be anything other than a dagger. She spoke up just after "Edouard" stopped talking, bowing slightly as she spoke.

"Fatima Santos, at your service!"

Wrex suspected that high tones of voice were meant to be something positive amongst humans, he thought they sounded far to much like a bunch of young asari playing mercenary for the first time. On the bright side they didnt think a high tone of voice was intimidating, he couldn't take negotiations with volus seriously whenever the whiny little gasbags attempted to bribe their way out of something like it was a vid.

Noticing something else more interesting, Wrex turned his head over his shoulder, addressing the small human.

"Whats with the sword? Haven't seen any other humans with one."

Fatima turned her head to the sword before looking back at Wrex and giving a small shrug.

"I'm from a Gurkha regiment , we're always issued a kukri, part of our traditions. Don't get to use it much though. Why? Any of your people use melee weapons with regularity?"

Wrex gave a small chuckle at the concept of a sapient asking **if** the krogan used melee weapons. These humans were going to have a lot to learn.

"Human, if you don't have something for close quarters in the modern galaxy then your species is doing something wrong. You know about the things we use to shield our ships, the kinetic barriers right? Well imagine one of those scaled down for an individual soldier. Expensive, means most ground forces are kinda small, but also makes you real tough to kill. Fortunately for my kind, barriers only work against high velocity objects, and krogan have always liked fighting with primitive weapons. We aren't the only ones either."

It was the big human, Edouard, who spoke next, his heavily accented voice having a curious tone to it.

"What kind of weapons? Swords?"

Wrex gave a throaty laugh that went for about en seconds. A deep " ** _Hur hur her_** " that echoed through the enclosed space.

"Human, krogan don't use swords.-"

Wrex felt the smile appear on his face as he remembered one of the items he had crafted with the omni forge. Reaching into his armour, he pulled out something he'd wanted to own for almost three centuries, if it hadn't been looked upon as a symbol of the Krogan Empire, thus being banned.

The object was as long as the humans forearm, with a single three pointed spike on one end and a rounded surface to give off more force on the other.

"-We use hammers."

Wrex held out the first Claw Hammer to see the light of day since the krogan rebellions, and it was all his.

 ** _Authors Note  
_**

( wow this took longer than I thought it would to get out, I mean I'm not the fastest writer but damn.)


	12. Chapter 12 : Advance

**_A Krogan misplaced: Chapter 12_**

 ** _"R &D Department: Lab 3: X-Compound" -Australian Outback - 25 Days after landing_**

  
The group of humans filling the lecture hall were to a sapient, singularly unimpressive by krogan standards. Seated five rows of forty, they were what passed for the human "elite". Each and every one of them was allegedly one of the most promising officers the humans could produce, high intelligence, peak physical fitness. A handful even had adorably primitive cybernetics and genetic enhancements.

They were a bunch of useless weaklings. But every race was that compared to the krogan, and if Urdnot Wrex intended to succeed where the salarians had failed, then the future human leadership would need to be soldiers and thinkers...not bloodthirsty morons claiming to be warriors that the damned amphibians had produced from the krogan.  
 ** _  
_**  
Yet as Wrex gazed across the ranks of humans...he couldn't help but feel an inkling of...something.

It was that feeling which he'd had when commanding his clan. When he taught the pups how to sing the most basic of the sacred songs. When the name of Urdnot Wrex had meant something other than failure. Wrex could see it in the eyes of the humans, the race might be stubborn, primitive, far too obsessed with their pop culture and constantly looked like they were on red sand... but they had potential. Wrex had learnt the subtle ways the humans expressed emotions, far to much focus on the face or tone of voice in his own opinion, but easy enough to read. The humans were...respectful. Some were in awe, others curious. He was rather disturbed that one of them was looking at him with slightly to much interest. More militant asari indeed.

But all of those were emotions he could use, emotions he could mould, forge into something which would set the foundation for the humans future. A future where they would be strong... honourable... with a miracle by Kalros he could even make them **peaceful**. But the challenge would be keeping them human...not some miniature race of krogan. Wrex was better than the salarians, he would prove it to the whole galaxy whenever the humans found it.

Enough of that though, now he would have to speak to the damned humans. Giving the primitive microphone on the podium a light tap, he started to speak in what the humans would hopefully interpret as a jovial tone.

"Greetings humans, for those few of you who don't know who I am, my name is Urdnot Wrex. I have fought in three galactic scale conflicts, nearly a hundred lower level conflicts, and more skirmishes than I can count or be bothered to remember. I have been a mercenary, warlord, general..."

Wrex let the sides of his mouth pull back. To a krogan, the face would be signifying his general excitement at what was to come, the human interpretation was somewhat more vague but along the same line of thought. The humans in the lecture hall just shifted nervously, if they reacted at all.

"...and It has become my job to teach you whimpering pyjaks how fighting beyond this little dirtball of a planet works. This will be a long term project, I doubt any of you will be alive when this comes into use, and you will all have to adjust everything I speak about to make it suitable for humans."

Scratching his chinplates, he gazed over the intent faces of the humans, most were leaning forward from where they sat, and even those that didn't were writing down notes. Good...might be hope for some of the useless pyjaks. Idly, he pointed to one of the humans in the front row, the name tag had something written on it and the flag probably signified where he was from, but Wrex didn't care.

"You, front row, second to the left. If I were to try and fight you in hand to hand, how would you defeat me?"

The young man started at being addressed, but rapidly got over it and answered the question, a degree of uncertainty in his voice as he analysed Wrex.

"I...I would attempt to hit your eyes, before tipping you over and thrusting a knife into your skull."

Wrex gave a disappointed sigh, before looking at the human and speaking.

"Wrong, even if I wasn't wearing a full face helmet, you'd have to place your arm in range of my bite. You'd be short an arm, and I'd probably blast you with a shotgun."

Turning to one of the candidates up the back, he pointed once more.

"Last row, fifth to the right. How would you do it?"

This human gave it more thought, before answering in a confidant tone of voice.

"Cut whatever your equivalent of tendons is, then finishing you off a distance away."

Wrex raised a brow to the human before he responded, according to Fatima, his deadpan tone of voice was improving.

"I have six redundant muscles which can take over the job my tendons provide, your plan fails and I crush your skull with my fist."

As he looked around the room, he noticed one of the humans, a small one with orange fur on their head. He couldn't actually its gender to his surprise, but presumably they had confidence given their action. Pointing to them, he gestured for the slight being to speak.

"We can't win, retreat to a distance and open fire with conventional weapons."

Wrex's grin grew wider, oh he was going to like this one.

"Correct!"

When he spoke next, he addressed the room as a whole, keeping his voice low so as to get the point across.

"What you humans are going to have to learn, is that you are not top of the pack in the wider galaxy. If you are in close combat with one of my people, the krogan, then your commanding officer has made a mistake. We have enough redundant biological systems, regeneration and pain resistance that any attempt bring us down without heavy amounts of gunfire is likely to be futile. The same applies to numerous other species. Turian blood is poisonous to your kind, the batarians are physically your superiors, any asari with half a brain can shove a fist full of biotics into your gut and let loose."

Crossing his arms, Wrex slowly tuned his head about the chamber, watching the reactions of the humans carefully.

"Your species is technologically two thousand years behind the rest of the galaxy, and is likely to be that way for several centuries. What I am going to be teaching you is not how to nullify this advantage, its going to be how to live with it, and who your descendants foes are going to be. If you don't disappoint me I might even consider each one of you to be a vague threat to a half dead quarian with a suit rupture. But the quarian would still probably win."

The humans were all looking distinctly uncomfortable, perhaps not used to the idea that they were helpless against the vast majority of the galaxy. Good, they needed to learn that they weren't the best. Wrex would remove their pride if he had to beat it out of them, pride was what had caused the krogan to try and conquer the galaxy, and Wrex wouldn't let the humans ever think they could pull that off. The humans would learn.

Wrex let them mull over that before he addressed them again. Glancing from one side of the room to the other, he let a bit of excitement pass into his voice as he spoke.

"But the best way to defeat your enemy is to know how they fight, and that is what I am here to teach you. So... who wants to start?"

 **Grand Ecumenical Conclave of All Christendom - Bethlehem - Israel**

  
To say that the representatives of the many denominations present in the hall were nervous would probably be understating the issue. This was only the most important meeting of the worshippers of christ since the last supper, never before had so many answered the call to a council, let alone one called by the Pope in Rome.

Yet as the last delegate was seated, Cardinal Josephine Vargas couldn't help but worry about the outcome of the holy gathering she was attending. Because the simple truth was, that just about everyone in the room hated someone else.

The Lutherans despised the Catholics, the Catholics disliked the Church of England, the Church of England thought the Methodists were doomed to hellfire. Everyone not from north America thought the Church of Latter Day Saints were weird and nobody was quite sure what to make of the Jehovahs Witnesses. That wasn't even getting into the near theological war that had broken out between the Russian and Ukrainian Orthodox Churches while for some reason the representative from the Turkish Evangelical Union had been getting strange looks from the Armenian side of the room.

If there hadn't been a single unifying factor which had gathered the disparate followers of god into a single room then there would probably have been three murders before the conference could start.

Yet... there was a unifying factor. Despite everything, the attending groups all agreed that the ramifications of what had happened near a month ago had to be discussed in an open forum. Some groups, a handful of the more fundamentalist expressions of gods word amongst them, had refused to attend the heathen/devil worshipping/papist meeting of faiths, and consequently had avoided mention. Yet when nearly two thousand people of different creeds had come together to discuss one issue... it was rather heartening.

That she herself had been chosen for such an honour made Cardinal Josephine intensely aware of how badly this needed to go right. And as the first speaker got up, that feeling remained.

Pastor Johann Yu was the first to speak, as one of the select delegation who had actually spoken with the subject of the council, Urdnot Wrex, he was also chosen to lead said council. The elderly man held up the sheet of notations as he began to speak.

"Greetings to all of you who have made the journey here to the birthplace of our lord-"

While there were some grumblings at the choice of word, the room otherwise remained silent as Pastor Yu continued to speak.

"- despite the swiftness with which this conclave was declared and the rapidity with which it had begun, I do believe that this event is necessary to have dialogue about. Our perspective on the lords creation has changed, no longer can we say for certain that we are alone in the universe. God has without doubt created other beings, and they have with them their own beliefs. I shall remind all that this conclave is purely for discussion, not binding arrangements or even general agreement."

Pausing, the old man seemed deep in thought for a few moments, but then he spoke once more, his tone betraying nothing of what he felt.

"Firstly, I must sadly state that this Urdnot Wrex does not believe in god as we would all know him, instead his people worship their ancestors, praying for their guidance. Yet despite this, they also seem to believe in what comes quite close to the descriptions of heaven."

A general murmur began to fill the room as many contemplated the fact that an entirely non human race separated from earth by untold millions of lightyears had created a similar concept of heaven. Josephine had a feeling that the particulars of that statement would become the focus of many a church in regards to the new reality.

"The specifics seem to be that when a being dies...their soul is placed upon a narrow bridge which leads up to heaven. On either side of this bridge, Urdnot Wrex claims that there is a great pit, which is where the souls of those unworthy must attempt to climb back out until they have been purified. This is however, only the first challenge. For a great worm referred to as "Kalros the Everliving" seeks to knock the unwary into the pit. Urdnot Wrex has told us that supposedly this beast is calmed by singing... and to do such at the burial of the deceased, if they are provided with appropriate gifts, will ensure they can get past Kalros and into their ancestors halls."

There was a great silence as all within the hall contemplated the words, eventually one of the Orthodox delegates stood up, opened his mouth to speak, and began at last, the Council of Bethlehem.

 **AUTHORS NOTES  
**  
In case you guys/gals/cthuloids are wondering why I chose to show a Christian conference on the matter, its frankly because I don't know any other  
group of faiths intimately enough to gauge their reaction to Wrex's arrival. If you have any opinions on the subject, i'd encourage you to offer them.


	13. Chapter 13 : Musings

**_A Krogan misplaced: Chapter 13_**

 ** _"X-compound " -Australian Outback - 2 & 1/2 months after landing_**

The woman, or at least that's what Wrex thought the human was, sitting in the chair opposite him was diminutive even by human standards, with a hunched frame, cloudy eyes hidden behind glasses and the general demeanour of an annoyed klixen. Yet Professor Emily Mei was apparently the foremost mind on gravitational physics the humans possessed, and his talks with the professor had proven surprisingly fruitful once he explained the basics and showed the diminutive figure some diagrams on his omni-tool.

But to Wrex what was important wasn't the Professor herself but rather what she had shown up with at his...well he supposed it was an office, not two weeks after he first began discussing how quickly humanity could advance and the timeframe required for such an effort. The device she'd placed on the desk would have appeared alien to the outside observer, and while it was inspired by such it was of human make. About as long as a human arm, a handful of switches with human writing on them to designate function and what was clearly a graal inspired barrel the device was a chimera of two worlds.

All in all the first of humanities plasma firearms was an impressive, if primitive piece of work.

Giving the firearm a look over once more before handing it back to Professor Mei, Wrex looked at the woman questionably before speaking.

"Could this be mass produced?"

The Professor shook her head quickly as she spoke, the spectacles on her neck dangling as she did so.

"No, far too expensive, too many rare materials, overheats quickly, and it's a prototype besides. Also if my suspicions are true it wouldn't be of much use against your technology?"

Wrex gave the human equivalent of a grin as he sat back in the chair, mulling the possibilities before he answered, his tone low.

"It might be a decent starting gun, but you'd have difficulty piercing personal shields, let alone some of the stuff mounted on vehicles or fortifications. Not a bad effort though, as far as first attempts go anyway. Which of the designs did you base this on?"

The elderly female initially hesitated before answering, perhaps too used to the black ops site she'd worked at prior to arriving at the compound. But after that moments hesitation, she answered promptly.

"The one labeled as a 'pulse rifle', we haven't been able to replicate the aerodynamics of the plasma as shown, but my colleagues to have theories as to how it could be done. These Geth must have fascinating mastery of technology to achieve the speeds stated. I cannot help but wonder what could be achieved if I had an actual example to study..."

Wrex gave a nod of acknowledgement as his mind went to other matters. He waited for the look of curiosity to fade off the woman's face before speaking again, his voice a low rumble as he mused the possibilities for the future.

"Do you ever wonder, professor, what the galaxy will be like when you humans finally reach it?"

Mei's face was set in a deep frown as she seemed initially taken back by the question, before she gave a slight shrug and responded.

"Why are you asking me that? You lived in it. Of all people on this planet you should know."

Wrex just gave a human nod before tapping a few holo-squares on his omni-tool. A floating image of the galaxy appeared, all partitioned in sectors and colours to sign with the various powers at be. Wrex gestured to it before speaking, his voice still giving away his curiosity.

"This is the galaxy two hundred years ago. Around the same length time your people are expected to take to actually reach the wider galaxy. Two hundred years ago the Quarians were a budding powerhouse, the last remnants of the Second Krogan rebellion were being ground into dust by the Batarians, and the Council were seriously considering another campaign in the Terminus, to bring some order to the thousand petty worlds within."

Wrex idly scratched his scaly chin before continuing, staring into the image like it might provide answers.

"And when I landed here the situation was completely different. I can give you humans guidance, and yet I can't promise anything I say will even be true by the time it will be useful. You'll have to make your own way in the galaxy."

Wrex gave a toothy grin.

"And won't that be a sight to see?"

-

 **-Dehli, India-**

  
The towering hotel-casino overlooking Ashoka's Pillar made a rather good meeting site truth be told, surrounded by enough people in a bustling city to escape notice, yet also civilised and recognisable. A shame it would only be used the once, but one couldn't be too careful in the age of surveillance.

Yet as Amir walked through the doors to the conference room, rented out so kindly by his colleagues, he gave a swift glance around for any signs of electricity, his cybernetic eye detecting nothing even as he moved to sit down at the leftmost of three long tables. As he glanced around he couldn't help but notice that the motley group that had assembled in the Indian capital probably would have looked like some bizarre conspiracy from an old spy movie even if they were totally innocent, the fact that they were a conspiracy notwithstanding of course.

Amir's seat wasn't anywhere near the head of any table, perhaps to remind him that he was ultimately a lesser player in the scheme, valued mainly for the wealth he commanded, rather than having countries at his beck and call like a handful present did. The woman at the head of his table was one such member, few in Iran would guess that the main power behind the President was in fact the mans wife, but Saleh Lajani was a woman with an iron will...and deep pockets.

A surreptitious glance at the rest of the tables revealed much of the same ilk. Most of those present were businessmen or women, a handful of politicians, intelligence operatives and military officers excepted. From every corner of the globe, from Kenya, France the Phillipines and everything in-between, the men and women in the room had gathered for a single purpose.

How to keep things stable.

Stability led to control, for who would make money or raise themselves higher if anarchy reigned. The whole dreadful business of 2027 aside, they'd been rather good at their jobs. A rebellion? Funds would make their way to the government opposing them, a disaster? Money would make its way to relief efforts. A blogger attempting to pull a Panama Papers?

Random people on the internet went missing all the time.

The beauty of the whole thing sometimes made Amir want to laugh. People thought that a global conspiracy was the stuff of cheesy movies, and it would stay that way for as long as the group could keep things going. But this would be the first meeting since an event nobody could predict had occurred, and Amir wondered what was going to happen, but then who wouldn't?

Whomever led the group was traditionally called 'The Head of the Snake", both as a joke, and a reminder. A rattlesnakes head could still bite even if it was severed after all. The current Head was a balding fellow of 80 odd years, Amir knew despite the man's plump frame and jolly expression that he could...and had, ordered deaths of powerful people in the blink of an eye. After the polite discussion finished, the Head began to speak, addressing the forty or so people in the room as if chairing a board meeting.

"Ladies and gentlemen, it pleases me to welcome you all back for another of our little get togethers. Now, as per usual the results of previous investments have been sent to your accounts and detailed reports can be viewed at your leisure, but the primary topic of discussion today is perhaps somewhat obviously, Urdnot Wrex, and what we will do with the information Mr Cirta over there managed to glean from his sources."

The man...boy really, in question stood up as the Head addressed him, his blond hair shaking from side to side as he pulled a tablet from within his suit. After tapping on it a few times, the young visage of Edward Cirta began to speak.

"Uh, no doubt you all know the basics as to what's out there in the galaxy, but what you may not know are some of the juicier details only present in the sealed archives. I'm sending a copy of everything gathered to your personal devices, it makes interesting reading."

True to form, Amir's phone gave a small *bip* as the files arrived, opening them to look, Amir read the covert documents for the next five minutes.

And five minutes was all it took for a wide grin to make it's way across his face. The potential within those files was enormous! But the dangers were...troubling.

Amir's colleagues showed no such restraint, a dozen conversations breaking out about profit margins and how much they could make or solidify their positions with the intel gained. If even a tenth of the technological contents could be deciphered at the most basic level it would make the inventor the richest person on earth.

But Amir's eyes had been drawn more to the patterns this Council had written into the stars. Of dominance, of utter control.

If more aliens were to arrive at Earth at that very moment, Amir was confident half the people around him would sell out the planet in a heartbeat. That couldn't be allowed.

And so making his own plans, Amir began to think of how he could strengthen humanity.

 **Authors Note**

I'm like back and stuff. yay.


	14. Chapter 14 : Reflection

**_A Krogan misplaced: Chapter 14_** ****

 ** _Cape Kennedy - Florida - 9th of November 2052_** ****

  
The rocket ship was the biggest of its kind ever constructed, towering some five hundred metres off of the ground, and studded by an array of podlike alien components alongside more recognisably human styles which made up its core, the behemoth of a vehicle was to be a statement to the universe, even if none other than its creators would see it.

But to Matthew Stoltzfus, 52nd President of the United States of America, the symbol of unity was far more important.

Matthew was aware he was hardly the most striking President in recent memory, being possessed of a rather dumpy frame, watery eyes and a long scraggly beard which hung down to his chest, a reminder of his old Amish way of life even after he chose to move to the big city. But while he may have been physically unimposing, Matthew liked to imagine he was known more for his speeches and policies rather than such outward things as appearance.

Standing amidst the crowd of delegates, amongst whom were the representatives of almost every nation on the face of the planet, containing such familiar figures as the Chinese President and the Secretary-General of the United Nations, and even the towering visage of Urdnot Wrex, the sole non-human sapient inhabiting humankind's birthplace.

But more important to Matthew were the thirty two suited astronauts standing at the boarding ramp. From nineteen nations and seven continents had come the men and women selected for the greatest leap humanity had taken since the discovery of fire. The thirty two people in front of him would begin the first steps of _Project Moses,_ the human settlement of Mars.

 ** _About three metres behind the President_** ****

  
Fatima Santos hadn't really expected to go too far in life, what with being the lovechild of a particularly drunk night between a otherwise devout member of the British Gurkha Regiment and a Filipino tourist, she'd grown up accepting that her best position in life would likley be as some secretary or another, or as a factory worker in some sweatshop.

When Fatima reflected on it, she was lucky that her _lolo_ had taken such thoughts as a personal insult and challenge. Oh she might have despised him at the time, but the amount of effort her _lolo_ put into getting her into military, even the damned British one when her own country still wouldn't allow it, was a greater testament to his strength of will than anything she could say.

Idly, she twirled her kukri around in her hands as she scanned the crowd once more, letting the familiar feeling of the blades edge sink in as she looked for anything that could possibly be suspicious. Finding nothing, she turned her eyes to the back of her charge, the one and only Urdnot Wrex.

Fatima still didn't know why she had been selected for guarding the most important VIP ever to exist as a full time job. In truth she suspected a degree of politics were involved, every country had been trying to get personnel into proximity with "Old man Alien" as much of the internet dubbed him, for prestige as much as anything else. Perhaps Fatima had simply been of a diverse enough background that a few minds agreed she would fit the bill.

But even after knowing the krogan for 10 years, Urdnot Wrex was something of an enigma to her. Fatima knew a fair amount about him, his habits and skills as a fighter or teacher. As well as more idle things like his personal preferences towards the ridiculously spicy foods Earth had to offer, or his odd dislike of amphibians.

Yet his thought processes, the reasoning behind his decisions or his thoughts regarding human events? Those were things the millennia old alien kept close to his chest as it were.

Checking radio chatter, Fatima silenced her thoughts as other security at the Moses Launch reported no signs of anything going awry. Which considering the last three occasions Wrex had been to was a relief. Crazed conspiracy theorists and lunatics made for poor assassins, but in ten years Fatima had needed to stop far more of them before they committed unwise acts than she had even been aware existed. The one primary disadvantage of being the only non-human on a pre-instellar flight species was seemingly that you became the prime target for any conspiracy group. Wrex being Wrex, had thought that such things were hilarious.

The last of the astronauts, the small Congolese man who was the main pilot, finished their speech, and as one they gave the salutes of their nations, a bewildering display of hands over hearts, on the sides of heads and pointed in the air either clenched into fists or open.

In truth, Fatima suspected that Wrex didn't quite know what humans as a whole thought of him. The interaction between the krogan and the human public had been quite limited aside from specific pre-organised events after all. But Fatima knew. The name Urdnot Wrex was quite possibly the most recognised one in the world. Almost everyone knew the basics, of the moment when humanity had discovered that it wasn't alone. Some hated him of course, for reasons of almost every kind. Some saw in the krogan divine intervention, or inspiration for art and other great works from cultures not human.

But Fatima saw in Urdnot Wrex something far more important, he represented hope.

Hope that humanity would solve its problems and squabbles, that the children of Earth might cease their warring and arguing to unite behind what they would do tomorrow, instead of what had been done yesterday.

Craning her head to watch the last astronaut disappear into the towering rocket, Fatima gave a small smile. Maybe it wouldn't be in her lifetime, but she had a sense things were going to get better.

 ** _-_**

 ** _President's Office, Sudan, five years earlier_**

  
The Sudanese President was a bulky man, the years of running a country always at the verge of tearing itself apart at the seams having caused the man a great deal of stress. Stress he relieved by eating perhaps a bit more than would be recommended by any doctor.

But even if he had wanted to make mention of that fact, Alek Dawoud would not have dared to do so. His position as head of intelligence was secured only by the grace of the man opposite him. Grace which could be taken away at a moments notice. So as the great bearded man finished off a delicious looking plate of roast lamb, Alek waited. Finally, a slight nod was given, the plate was taken away, and Alek could get down to business.

Shuffling the papers in front of him, he began to speak in the timid tone of voice which had made all those superiors before the coup assume he was some wretched bookworm, possessed of little ambition.

"I have a-ah report on the situation in Kadugli Mr President. The neo-janjaweed group was dispersed as ordered, but it seems the police were...overzealous in doing so."

The President looked at him with a glare, Alek wasn't worried, the glare was just that, the man had his ways of dealing with frustration or failure but thankfully a firing squad wasn't one of them. Stroking his beard, the President spoke a few words in a deep tone.

"Overzealous...how? Minister?"

Alek made something of a show of appearing nervous before glancing down at the paper and reading off the attached report.

"It would seem that the officers...took the permission to use force in a somewhat liberal manner. Three neo-janjaweed were killed and an officer was badly wounded in response."

The President gave a frown, his jowls wobbling slightly as he did so.

"Give the man a commendation and line him up for a promotion, but that hardly fits the description of "overzealous"."

Alek gave a single short sigh, before showing a handful of pictures to his superior, of burnt homes and destroyed thoroughfares.

"The officers seem to have desired some revenge for the wounding of their comrade and... burned down the meeting hall in which the Janjaweed had gathered. This then spread to the neighbouring slums and it's estimated that almost 400 have been left homeless."

The normally jovial President then proceeded to let loose a barrage of some of the foulest curses the Arabic language could conjure up, insinuating numerous things about the parentage of his police chief, said police chief's relationship with his farm animals, and the soon to be fired police chief.

The tirade was capped off by the heavyset man leaning deeply into his chair, before he turned slowly to Alek, obviously in deep thought.

"Evidently, an issue of this magnitude demands rectification. Prepare documents for the arrest of all high ranking officers who are known to be even the slightest bit corrupt or disloyal, i'm cleaning house."

A slight pause occurred as the mountain of a man wiped his brow with a handkerchief before continuing.

"We'll also need someone to fill in the vacancy of Police Chief, at least temporarily. Do you have any men who could do that?"

Alek thought about it for a few seconds, before a name came to mind that had previously crossed his desk.

"Yes sir, I believe I've mentioned him before, one of my lower ranking agents from the Badri family. Loyal, aligned with our cause, and too wealthy to be bribed."

The President nodded at the words, idly signing a few documents Alek had handed him before speaking.

"Excellent, get him informed immediately. What was his name... Al something?"

"Amir sir."

"Yes well get him on it."

Not thinking about it for the rest of the day, Alek Dawoud signed one of the more important pieces of paper in human history.

 **Authors Notes**

 _lolo_ = Fillipino word for grandpa

I should really follow people's advice and save my half-completed chapters on a google doc, because I lost another 4-5000 words worth of work across 3 stories. *sigh*

*mid way though edit* AND IT HAPPENED AGAIN. But I had a google doc so it's fine.

But nevertheless here is the first of the "timeskip" chapters, this one taking place as humanity gradually adapts to the changes being thrust upon it.

And as always, any opinions you guys, gals and cthulioids have are very much appreciated. Like seriously, i'm pretty sure half the major plot points, continuity snags or problems which would have shown up have been altered due to reader feedback.


	15. Chapter 15 : Mars

**A Krogan Misplaced Chapter 15: Mars**

 ** _Camp Hawking - Mars - 15th December 2063_**

The towering white spires of Camp Hawking were the single most notable feature in the otherwise dull and dreary landscape of Mars. Amongst the dust and dirt of the red planet the clean and imposing towers which made up the majority of the base were even more impressive, standing like skyscrapers back on Earth even though they were barely the height of apartment blocks.

Naturally, they also became the target of the first selfie on a planet other than Earth.

Maria Giuseppe had become one of the most famous people in the world simply by being selected for the Mars Mission, planet Earth having descended into a Mars-mania which still hadn't subsided even four years after landfall on the red planet. It was Maria reflected, perhaps one of the better ways to become famous, her co-astronaut Yu had been noted for being the first man to take a dump on Mars, the memes of which were relentless in their advance across internet forums worldwide.

Putting her phone back into her pocket, Maria got into her rover and began the daily trek of exploring Mars.

As the rugged vehicle thundered along the dusty plains, Maria was enveloped in her thoughts. Thoughts of what she could do when she was sent back to Earth, there were many opportunities for a celebrity after all, thoughts of what her family would be doing even though she got messages from them every other week, the last being the birth of her youngest niece, named after Maria herself for some dumb reason.

Maria was in fact so consumed by perplexion at her sisters bad choice of baby names, that it was only after half an hour of driving that she realised she was completely and utterly lost.

Being lost on Earth wouldn't have been a problem, GPS and roadside assistance and asking the locals if they spoke anything other than gibberish generally allowed even the most clueless of people to make their way around the globe with little difficulty. On Mars? There was no roadside assistance, no roads, no locals and only basic GPS that was dependent on whether the red planet's magnetic field was feeling like it was generous on a given day, which if Maria looked to the little screen on the side of her dashboard, was not the occurrence today.

Stopping the rover, she let out a flurry of mixed Italian and Spanish curse words before turning her head to see if she recognised any of the landmarks around the valley she was in. The high cliffs were different than most on Mars, sheer and smooth like polished marble rather than the wind worn rubble look the rest of the planets rocks sported. That might actually have warranted marking the place down on the map Maria was charting if she'd had any idea at all of where she was.

The cliffs however were not what caught her attention, rather it was the open chasm of a cave that Maria's eyes were drawn to. It was a vast opening, easily able to fit a jet aircraft through its maw, and truly the mouth of the cave did resemble a maw, with gaping stalactites for fangs and a narrowing to the sides which gave it the appearance of some screaming ancient thing lost to time. Driving her rover to the mouth of the cave, she set its automatic drone to go high into the atmosphere and search for a way back to base. Maria then jumped out of the rover, double checked the integrity of her suit and oxygen tanks, then began to walk slowly into the cavern mouth.

The cave went for easily a full kilometre, oddly maintaining a steady height and width throughout its length. Yet Maria couldn't help but notice other things as she began to reach the end of the tunnel, things like oddly smooth pieces of rock where one might have otherwise put things on the cave walls, or the seeming absence of stalactites and stalagmites in the very centre of the cavern. She was on to something, she knew it. But the cave end seemed to be just that, a cave end. Illuminating the walls revealed nothing odd, other than bright silvery streaks of metal running through the stone.

Turning around to head back to the entrance and her rover, Maria was struck by a thought. And looked _up_.

Up to see the _second_ layer of the cavern, and the rust ridden remains of what had once surely been a vehicle bay, complete with a vehicle inside.

On Mars. Where no humans had stepped before.

"Holy shit..."

Two words which summarised the reaction of an entire planet.

 ** _Compound-X - Australia - 21st of December 2063_**

  
The Extraterrestrial Exploration and Response Group, EERG, was not a very intimidating sounding branch of the United Nations. Officially it was just one of many new departments created in the ever expanding powers of the UN to deal with global issues, and technically was rather underfunded and mundane.

Unofficially, every member of the security council, all nations with nuclear weapons and relevant organisations like NASA, the World Bank and key individuals like Urdnot Wrex and the General Secretary used the EERG as a place to plan for all contingencies in the event of extraterrestrial contact. But as William van Hague had learnt only the day before, all relevant plans had assumed the contact would take place outside the system, not on Mars of all places.

William was the last person to take his seat, holding the place of the Netherlands at the very important table, almost after the meeting began. Looking around, he could spy several figures who typically weren't at the meetings, like the Sudanese vice-president and numerous scientists from various fields. Ruffling the pile of papers on the table in front of him, William listened as the General Secretary called the meeting to order in his shrill Mexican accented Spanish.

"Gentlemen and ladies, while most of you no doubt know the reason for this meeting it is prudent to go over the most recent updates. To summarise, the Mars Team has discovered what is undoubtedly the ruins of a non-human facility near Olympus Mons. Urdnot Wrex - "

The General Secretary gestured to the massive alien, who gave a slight nod in acknowledgement.

"- informs us that several of the symbols on the outside of the ruins are Prothean in origin. The Protheans being the dominant species in the galaxy before their extinction some 50,000 years ago. This would seem to indicate that the Protheans had at the very least knowledge of the system, and possibly direct knowledge of humanity itself. This in turn means that Earth is, at the very least, on the "Mass Relay Network" which the galaxy as a whole uses for transportation. In short, we are not as isolated from the galaxy as we would care to think, and it is inevitable that at some point in the near future, we are liable to encounter the galactic community. In short, we are advancing our timetable by at a minimum 50 years."

Several muttered curses could be heard from the head of the World Bank, and quiet discussion between delegates continued for some time before Urdnot Wrex himself tapped the microphone in front of him to speak, and the room quietened as the worlds first visitor spoke.

"To give you humans context, only two species had Prothean ruins in their home systems, the Hanar and the Batarians. If you're lucky this outpost might contain some Eezo supplies, or directions to the nearest mass relay. At the least its got a couple of rusted ships and all things indicate that one could be repaired with the limited Eezo supplies present on Earth. In any case, if there does turn out to be anything substantial then I suggest that the United Nations issues the Unity proclamation, or at least lays the foundation of a summit where it could be proclaimed. Your species can't afford to be seperate when you encounter the other races of the galaxy, and that's suddenly gotten a whole lot more likely."

The room discussed the Krogans proposal for almost half an hour before consensus was reached, most dissenters quashed by the knowledge that even if they personally wanted their nations to continue seperate existences, said nations had agreed over two decades ago on the course of action that was to be taken for Planet Earth's future.

The quiet discussion of the worlds most powerful people was abruptly interrupted when an aide burst through the doors and ran to the general secretary, who listened intently to the hurried and broken Spanish coming from the woman. After the aide stopped talking the General Secretary gave a grimace before speaking into his microphone.

"I'm afraid Gentlemen and Ladies that this knowledge of not being alone in our system has been leaked onto the internet."

As suddenly as it had been silenced, the previously calm room exploded with noise.

 **Authors Note:**

You know i'll be honest. I'm terrible with keeping up to updates. I get writers block and I procrastinate and sometimes I put out pieces of dubious quality... thats not even considering that I flat out don't plan story arcs that well.

Yet this moment of inspiration has struck me just after reading about the unfortunate death of Steven hawking (RIP) and barely a week before my mid course exams but pssht, who cares about that!


	16. Chapter 16 : Union

******_  
February 27th 2088_**

 ** _Charter of the Union of Sovereign Human States_**

 ** _Preamble -  
_**  
 _WE THE PEOPLES OF THE UNION OF SOVEREIGN HUMAN STATES DETERMINED_

 _\- to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which has brought untold sorrow to humankind, and_

 _\- to regain faith in fundamental sapient rights, in the_ _d_ _ignity and worth of the sapient person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and_

 _\- to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of law can be maintained, and_

 _\- to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,  
AND FOR THESE ENDS_

 _to practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neighbours, and_

 _to unite our strength to maintain peace and security, and_

 _to ensure, by the acceptance of principles and the institution of methods, that armed force shall not be used, save in the common interest, and_

 _to employ international machinery for the promotion of the economic and social advancement of all peoples,_

 _HAVE RESOLVED TO COMBINE OUR EFFORTS TO ACCOMPLISH THESE AIMS_

 _Accordingly, our respective Governments, through representatives assembled in the city of Jakarta, who have exhibited their full powers found to be in good and due form, have agreed to the present Charter of the Union of Sovereign Human States and do hereby establish a pan-national state to be known as the Union of Sovereign Human States._

 ** _Article 1 - Purpose of the Union of Sovereign Human States  
_**  
 _\- The Union of Sovereign Human States (USHS) shall serve as the governing body of all Humanity, with the explicit goal of furthering the freedoms and rights of the human race throughout both the Solar System and the new frontier of Outer Space which is yet to be widely explored or settled._

 _\- The Union of Human States shall seek to represent Humanity on the galactic scale, and shall seek to establish friendly relations with any and all sapient species present throughout._

 _\- The Union of Human States shall aim to achieve cooperation throughout its member states and by extension all human peoples.  
_

 ** _Article 2 - Governance  
_**  
 _\- The USHS shall be a federal government comprised of two houses. An Electoral house of 4000 voting members elected by the population of each of the 4000 districts every 10 years. Districts are to based around an area of approximately 2,750000* people and are to be adjusted once every 25 years. Statorial representatives if their state does not contain 2,750000 people may apply for a non-voting member of the Electoral house to represent their interests._

 _\- District elections are to be overseen by USHS officials and may not be interfered with or run by Statorial governments._

 _\- The Electoral house is responsible for the proposal of laws* and the election* of the USHS Secretary General._

 _\- The Electoral house may dismiss the heads of USHS Judicial, Military and Civilian organisations and branches by a majority vote._

 _\- The Secretary General is the Head of State for the USHS and possesses the power of Veto on matters of external relations*, war, Statorial member disputes* and may declare a State of Emergency in certain circumstances*_

 _\- The functions of government are to be delegated to chosen ministers with portfolios, these ministers may be selected by the Secretary General._

 _\- The Statorial house is to be comprised of the appointed representatives of the States which make up the USHS. Representatives may be appointed or dismissed at will by member nations. The Statorial house may pass* laws from the Electoral house but may not propose laws of its own._

 _\- The Statorial house is responsible for the election of the World Security Councils 8 non-permanent members, (Permanent members being the United States of America, Russian Federation, Peoples Republic of China, Republic of India, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Republic of France and the Islamic Republic of Pakistan)._

 _\- The World Security Council possesses the right of Veto unless overruled by all 7 permanent members._

 _\- The Statorial house may refuse a representative if the representative has been / is being charged with being guilty of Human Rights Violations*._

 _\- Non-voting members are permitted to attend and give opinions on Statorial and Electoral meetings, are to be appointed at the discretion of the World Security Council, and may advise said Council on matters of relevance. The following individuals and organisations are non-voting members._

 _Both Houses: Urdnot Wrex (Advisor of Alien Affairs), USHS Secretary General, WHO representative._

 _Electoral House: Vatican City, Old Jerusalem Council, Dalai Lama, Custodian of Mecca*, Ayatollah of Iran, Representative of the World Council of Churches, Sovereign Military Order of Malta._

 _Statorial House: Special Representatives of Nations with less than 275,000 people._

  
 ** _  
Article 3 - Military  
_**  
 _\- The armed forces of the USHS shall be under a unified command structure. The highest officer in the command structure* shall be selected from available high ranking military personnel by the Statorial house, though this appointment may be struck down by a vote from the Electoral house._

 _\- The armed forces of the USHS shall be referred to as Union forces._

 _\- The Union Forces answer to the Secretary General and relevant cabinet ministers._

 _\- Union ground forces shall be comprised of the pre-existing State forces* who can be called or volunteered for extra terrestrial duty. In a state of war all State forces shall be under unified command. Blue water navies and atmosphere limited aircraft are counted as part of State forces._

 _\- Space capable vehicles* are under the authority of Unified Command at all times, and answer to the Union Naval Command. Individual Statorial members of the USHS or private individuals who fund the construction of a vessel may name said vessel as they wish._

 _\- Ground forces not on Earth always answer to Unified Command via the Union Marines, this includes Colonial garrisons and security detachments upon Naval vessels._

 _\- The budget for Union forces is determined by members of the World Security Council._  
 ** _  
Article 4 - Judicial  
_**  
 _\- The USHS administrative branch does not possess the ability to interfere in judicial matters that are not of grave importance* to the USHS. All non-critical judgments are to take place according to State law* unless otherwise* noted._

 _\- The USHS upon state request, a vote by the Electoral house, or upon the recommendation of the World Security Council, may hold a vote to pass legislation which all states are expected to comply with._

 _\- The World Court shall deal in matters of grave importance (Treason, Crimes against humanity, cases which have gotten through all previous levels of the court system and are deemed important by the World Court, etc)_

 _\- Judges on the World Court are to be selected by the USHS Secretary General, this may be overturned by vote of the Electoral House._

 _\- Off of Earth the Colonial Charter* and relevant laws shall apply_

 _\- Enforcement of law is to be undertaken by USHS Police Forces, who coordinate with State level police forces. State Level police forces may organise themselves at their own discretion._ ** __**

 ** _Article 5 - Intelligence  
_**  
 _\- CLASSIFIED_  
 ** _  
Article 6 - Colonisation  
_**  
 _\- All off-Earth colonisation is to be undertaken according to the "Colonial Charter" agreement of 2080. With appropriate respect given to any native life and the wellbeing of the planet in question._

 _\- No Colony may associate itself directly with a State or district, nor may it discriminate against migrants based on Ethnicity, Sexuality or any other reason._

 _\- All colonies fall under the "Colonial Administration Bureau" and may eventually progress to a full member state*._

 _\- Colonies are entitled to a non-voting member upon reaching a population of 100,000 individuals._  
 ** _  
Article 7 - Foreign Relations  
_**  
 _\- No State, individual, organisation, arm of the government or non-profit organisation may negotiate or interact with a foreign power without prior vetting by the USHS. No State, Commercial or Non-Profit organisation or individual person may negotiate with a foreign power on behalf of the USHS or a member State of the USHS without USHS mediation or permission._  
 ** _  
Article 8 - Rights  
_**  
 _\- All sapient beings posses rights underlined by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948._

 _ **-Document continues on from here-**_

 _ **_**_ ** ___**

 ** _Report to USHS Marshal Hu from Colonel Irene Vega (DATE CLASSIFIED)_**

 ** _Subject - Project Ancients  
_**  
 _Sir, thanks to several breakthroughs in recent weeks Project Ancients is proceeding far ahead of schedule. Reverse-engineering estimates that they can reproduce a working baseline ship (Sadly no progress has been made by Archive team on weapons or shielding technology) within a decade, and mass production can begin as early as 2102._

 _It should be noted that despite all attempts we cannot replicate the hull strength of the original vessel, even after 50,000 years of motionless decay on Mars, Professor Ramirez suggests that an attempt to refurbish the original hull, combined with some of Source 1's information on preeminent weapons technology in the wider galaxy before cutoff, could result in a warship that would be at the least a deterrent in the event of contact, I am inclined to believe his assumption as Source 1 indicated that Prothean technology was superior to that of the wider galaxy by a large margin even 2000 years after its discovery._

 _Of far greater importance however, is the fact that Archive records indicate that Charon, Europa, Deimos, Ceres and several hundred asteroids (most of which are unidentifiable due to 50,000 years of movement) contain minor or in the case of Ceres, major Element Zero stocks, enough to power even our largest naval size projections for two to three decades. Combined with the Mars deposit and we may actually get commercial space-mining to a viable level within several decades._

 _In addition there are faint references to a mass relay either in this system or in the Kuiper belt. If the linguists make further progress we may determine where exactly but much of the data is corrupted._

 _All information can be found here._

 _This is Colonel Irene Vega, signing off._

  
 **  
Authors Note:**

* denotes superfluos information.

World Government! Get out your (actually not so inaccurate in this case) Illuminati conspiracy theories people!

The refurbished hull of the Prothean Ship ( a former cargo vessel abandoned on Mars after the Protheans left the system) is perhaps the only vessel that will be able to challenge a council one on even ground by the time first contact roles around, albeit it would have to challenge a ship below its weight class.

Anyways, this is something of a change of format compared to my other chapters, so what do you guys, gals and Cthuluoids think?


	17. Chapter 17 : Teacher

**Chapter 17 : Teacher**

 ** _July 19th 2091_** \- _**CLASSIFIED - Australia**_

Urdnot Wrex was not a krogan prone to hobbies or leisurely pursuits. Unlike many of his fellow krogan who'd taken up the life of a wandering mercenary, he wasn't partial to hedonism or the cheap thrill of sporting competitions and battle.

That said, Wrex had always been somewhat interested in history, the idea that one could learn from the past what would occur in the present and future. He'd read the works on figures like the Silent Queen, a technological mastermind from the asari industrial era. The first batarian Emperor, who'd conquered a planet in a generation and Shaman King Uluk, the last and greatest salarian warlord who'd opposed Daltriana Shego. Beings who thought brilliance, will or luck had bent entire civilisations to their will. He wondered sometimes how it had all gone so wrong for his own species. Why his grandsire hadn't accepted that the krogan would need to make do with the worlds they had, why wretched Okeer had betrayed his people, why his father had been so against changing the krogan for the better.

The humans, Wrex mused, had some interesting figures of their own. Philosophers like Confucius and Voltaire, great conquerers like Genghis Khan and Shaka Zulu, even great speakers had left their mark on the human species, with William Wilberforce and Martin Luther King Jr being of equal importance on the great map of human history. Wrex had gone though book after book in search of what humans said about themselves, and what they said about others, the fundamental essence of what made the humans different from the animals which trod outside their vaunted cities.

Naturally, Wrex had found what the humans wrote about their wars. It had taken time, especially given his consistent trawling of philosophical and linguistic works in his initial decades stranded on the planet. But eventually he'd read about and investigated almost every single war the humans had undertaken in almost three thousand years. Oh how their viciousness had surprised him, the lengths they'd gone to were nothing compared to krogan or even turian warfare of course, but the deceivingly meek looking humans were perfectly capable of the sort of war that would leave a foe bleeding and collapsing upon the ground for years afterwards.

Wrex had been asked by the new Union of Sovereign States, to help with determining the direction the humans would be taking their ground forces. He supposed it wasn't surprising, he was the only being in the system with any combat experience in the wider galaxy and had also seen more wars than most of the human leadership put together.

A grimace crossed his face as his listened to the latest complaints the Swedish attache. It was something he could tell by the way they were arguing with him right now.

"We cannot afford to just give up on Main Battle tanks as a military concept!"

The sighs from the portion of the room aligned with Wrex were almost audible. The motley collection of his former pupils was far smaller than it had been in that first class almost four human decades prior, but they'd be forming the nucleus of the new USHS military. Over four dozen warlords...well he supposed the humans called them 'generals' but to Wrex they'd always be warlords, all of whom were trained in krogan style warfare. Massed light armour, concentrated decapitation strikes by biotics or artillery, and utterly overwhelming firepower. The bread and butter of the dozen or so wars Wrex had fought on Tuchanka and beyond.

Wrex knew some of his kin would probably say that aliens couldn't fight a war like a true krogan, and they'd be right. Years of observation taught him that humans were prone to breaking far too easily if untrained unlike turians or asari, and they didn't posses the durability of elcor or the batarians when it came to taking casualties. Nevertheless the human forces he'd fought in the war-games and simulations had been interesting fights, very hard to squash if they retained leadership and capable of some utterly murderous urban warfare tactics. By Kalros they'd turned ryncol into a weapon!

One of Wrex's proteges, a Sri-Lankan woman who'd earned the nickname "Shorty" during her time under his tutelage, was the first to answer the Swedish attaches third objection to basic military sense, her voice carrying derision even through Wrex's translator.

"Mr Lindholm, the next war humanity fights will not be one in which main-battle tanks are useful. Mass effect weapons make unshielded vehicles useless, and even if we did fit a shield to a MBT it would be far too vulnerable to both the orbital and ground weapons of almost a century ago in the wider galaxy, let alone what they will have constructed by the time we actually meet any of them."

The attache made a few more heated arguments about why the USHS should keep heavily armoured fast vehicles, and even though Wrex admired the concept of the 'MBT', the limited technology he'd brought with him did not include miniature level shields needed to make it viable, something that was acceptable for infantry, not assault vehicles. The humans would have to sole that issue on their own. Something the abyss-be-damned prothean library they'd uncovered on Mars would probably be helpful with.

Wrex started paying attention again as what was supposed to be one of the final speakers stepped up to the podium he and the military officials were looking down on. The man stumbled up to the podium, as Wrex couldn't call the arthritis riddled gait actual walking, was evidently very old by human standards. Easily 80 at the least, that he still held influence enough to be where he was interested Wrex greatly.

To Wrex's right the newly appointed Marshal of the USHS forces, an elderly Chinese general by the name of Hu Jieshi, addressed the middle eastern looking man in the slow methodical tone which had seen him through campaigns in Xianjing and Qinghai.

"Mr Amir Badri, Minister of Defence for Sudan, you have been summoned before this most esteemed gathering as to inquire about your proposed 'Miliary Intelligence Committee.' The review team deemed your suggestion worth the Union Armed Forces time, would you care to inform the present personnel as to your proposal?"

The elderly Sudanese man bowed deeply to Marshal Hu before activating a slide on the board behind him. A variety of pictures and statistics began to appear on the board as he spoke in a rasping and heavily accented english.

"Generals, Admirals and honoured representatives-"

The man gave a slight nod to Wrex as he spoke before continuing in the same raspy if enthusiastic voice.

"Historically, having a single intelligence agency police the actions of both civilian and military affairs has proven... dangerous, for a variety of reasons.. In my own country it even allowed for a coup which killed the first President I served under. The current proposal by the new Union of Human States government would allow an overarching intelligence organ to have complete control over both internal, external and military intelligence efforts, and while that might work in former Korea or New Zealand, the sheer scope of the difficulties a single organisation would face, let alone the risks of corruption and potential foul play, mean that we cannot allow such to occur."

Mr Badri paused as another of Wrex's former students, the newly appointed Admiral Einstein, interrupted him to speak.

"Mr Badri, while we understand your point, we would appreciate if you could get to the part of this which relates to the military."

The Sudanese man nodded quickly before continuing.

"My apologies Admiral, my proposal is that rather than the current inefficient system, a new and independent intelligence organisation be created under the direct supervision of the Marshal and the General Secretary, details of the actual organisation are in the folders on your desks."

Hu was the first person to answer as all the others began to read their copy of said files. His voice holding just a hint of interest.

"Mr Badri, we shall consider you proposal."

-

 _ **Archives - Advertisement for Lunar Colony - New Herat**_

  
 _Overhead view of Lunar landscape viewing the Earth - Narration begins_

"Are you tired of life on planet Earth?"

 _Shot switches to slums of Mumbai, Rio di Janeiro, Chisinau. Highlighting the unhappy and decrepit looks of many inhabitants, poor quality of food, crime. - Narration Continues after several seconds_

  
"Do you feel like you deserve better for yourself? For your family? Do you want more out of the lot you've been given?"

 _Cheerful music begins - shot switches to a tall series of arcology buildings against the Lunar landscape, surrounded by numerous fountains, trees, and underneath a clearly visible double layer shield and glass dome system to keep atmosphere inside. People from multiple different ethnicities in futuristic clothing are milling around, all have large smiles on their faces and appear to be enjoying themselves. - Narration begins again._

  
"Come to New Herat! A brand new Lunar colony, New Herat contains all of the most up to date safety measures and top of the line security systems without sacrificing luxury.

 _A row of fresh of the line PAUL security mechs stand in guard positions near a public entertainment arcology. They aren't obviously armed, and look eerily human._

"And if you ever feel homesick, Earth is only a day away, as the USHS Colonial Office is proud to state that New Herat will be the first colony connected to Earth by a daily transit network!"

 _Dramatic footage of lunar dust dispersing as a large cargo-shuttle comes into land, dispersing a number of fresh colonists and supplies._

  
"300,000 places in paridise, one could be for you, two could be for a new family, all could be yours, if you move beyond earthly limitations."

 _More pictures of idealic scenery, and a baby being delivered to tis mother in a maternity ward. The narrator then stands in front of the camera, and begins to speak. A tag reads "Comrade Yazov, space explorer_

  
"I'm Cosmonaut Dmitria Yazov, and I implore you to consider your future -"

 _A woman and three children move to stand in front of the camera_

  
"-and that of your family"

 _Screen cuts to a brief piece of text saying the add is supported by USHS government_

 _Addendum : New Herat has received over 900,000 applicants within a week._

 **Authors Note:**

Y'know I think one of the reasons I write might be because I feel anxious for whatever reason at the time.

Something to think about anyway.

Also i'm on my 5th cup of tea today. Should i stop?


	18. Chapter 18 : Preacher

**Chapter 18 : Preacher**

 ** _Ker-kalna - Tuchanka - 2112 AD_**

The dusty flats of Ker-kalna had born significance to many krogan tribes since time immemorial. When the first fires burned on Tuchanka, the flats had been one of the few areas of relative calm, not enough grew there to be worth fighting for, and the wildlife did not grow so vicious as elsewhere in Tuchanka's jungles. As civilisations grew and flowered and wilted under time, the flats remained untouched, a haven for hermits and lore singers seeking inspiration, for the occasional band of refugees to spend a few nights in safety, and for the hardy plains flowers which bloomed in the summer. Then the Wars of Blood ended old Tuchanka in an instant. The jungles burned, the wildlife which could not escape perished, the flourishing krogan civilisations died almost to a one, leaving only savages and primitives to pick over the ruins.

But Ker-kalna had escaped that fate, the mountains which surrounded the plain protected what lay beyond from the worst of the firestorms, the snows provided small streams with unpolluted water, even the flowers bloomed after a few years without sunlight. Naturally, once it became known that such an oasis existed, millions of starving krogan descended upon the safe haven seeking to feed upon whatever they could.

Tens of thousands of krogan died upon the flats of Ker-kalna over the following centuries, and like many other remnants of how Tuchanka was it became a site of ritual and mysticism. The old traditions of warfare were enacted time and time again on the sun-cracked plain. Two lines of krogan, one line facing the sun, the other the open sky, would do battle for whatever foolish purpose they deemed worthy of death.

The thought caused the Shaman of Urdnot, his name since before he could remember otherwise, to snort in disgust as he gazed from the hatch of his tomkah across the plain. To think that the fools of generations past had used one of the only fertile areas for a hundred leagues as a glorified arena. But as Shaman he was the guardian of tradition, and even traditions which should have been long buried had to be observed on occasion.

Around him from a thousand other tomkah's, an army emerged. The krogan who strode first from the tomkahs were the new bloods, youngsters and fools who'd been lucky enough to make it to adulthood. Their expressions were wide bloodthirsty grins and their enthusiasm made up for their lack of skill. Few of them had any armour of substance, a handful had armour suits or personal shields which their sires had gifted them, but most wore nought but cloth and painted symbols, thresher maws and snarling varren.

After the new bloods came the warriors, from almost six dozen clans Urdnot Shaman had defeated these warriors were the best that could be offered. Every one of them had a suit of armour and more than a few had battle suits and shields. Their weapons were better as well, shotguns well worn with age and exotic pieces like cains, executors and the occasional salvaged lance cannon. The warriors were eager, it could be seen in the way they moved, tense at what would come, and excited at another chance for glory.

Then, only a few dozen in number, came the leaders. Battlemasters and Warlords all, where once they had born many names, now most answered to Urdnot. The warlords bore great shotguns and ancient battlesuits, the battlemasters writhed with biotic power they'd been storing for weeks. Yet none of them looked eager, or excited. Once ones nose was drowned in enough blood a bit more didn't make a difference.

The host of Urdnot emerged from its transport, and began to line up on the side of the Ker-kalna flats facing away from the sun. The Shaman strode in front of them, them armour of Urdnot Wreav's bones somehow enhancing his limping forms presence, the other battlemasters and warlords giving him acknowledgement as they made their way to their own parts of the line. Normally the Shaman would give some speech, a great exhortation of the glory they would win and the invincibility they possessed as true krogan. But aside from the eager growls of the young bloods, the army of Urdnot was silent. This was a battle of hate after all, not some clash for females or food.

As the Shaman looked on, the clouds of dust obscuring the other end of the plain parted, and his foe came into view.

Clan Tarq were the last of Urdnots neighbours yet to fall, and despite everything they remained as strong as ever. The army marching across the flats towards him may not have been quite as large as his own, but they were most certainly better equiped. Instead of graals and strikers, they Tarq warriors bore upgraded phaestons and a dozen other alien made weapons. The only thing keeping the Shaman from abandoning the showdown altogether was that they'd abandoned their vehicles as was custom. At least they possessed a sliver of honour.

From his waist the Shaman grabbed a long horn, raising it to his cracked lips he blew the old signal to begin the advance, a low ' _thrum_ ' that echoed through the mountains, and began to ever so slowly, walk forwards. As one his army followed, the 10,000 strong mass of krogan quickly getting ahead of their leader even at a walking pace. Growls of hunger, of bloodlust and rage began to echo throughout the advancing warriors as they prepared for what was to come.

The first shots began to sound off once both armies were almost a kilometre away. Mostly inexperienced young bloods on both sides firing off their weapons but a handful of snipers as well. The shots caused nothing serious, aside from one unlucky krogan to the Shaman's left who took a round through the eye, the spasming corpse collapsing on the ground even as the mass of warriors marched on.

Ever so slowly, the armies began to jog. More krogan were aiming and firing off their shots by this point, sporadic bursts of gunfire sounding off across the lines and impacting both sides alongside warpfire that the battlemasters and warlords threw in great explosions of eery biotic light. More krogan began to fall, mostly the youngbloods but a few warriors roared in pain as shots struck their limbs or armour plates. Most regenerated, but some did not.

The jog turned into a running pace when each side was only 500m from the other, and the Shaman could swear that the floodgates of the abyss itself opened as every krogan who could shoot something let off with their weapons. The front ranks fell back as they regenerated from wounds or lifelessly struck the plain, mostly older warriors who knew what happened at this point in battle, and ahead of them the youngbloods surged like a tide, sprinting outright for their opponents lines even as explosives and biotic powers turned many into gibbets.

Only a hundred metres away and the carnage turned into a hailstorm of mass effect powered projectiles, the youngblood front ranks evaporating as they took a heavy toll. Biotic powers struck entire sections of the lines, dozens of krogan screaming in rage as the purple fires scorched them of their flesh. Strikers and graals truly began to reap their own crop as the grenades and spikes shredded krogan after krogan, often not killing them but leaving them deprived of limbs and chest plates. Most would survive.

The mad charge continued, the warlords now at the forefront, brandishing hammers and shotguns while yelling curses and roaring to the heavens. The very plain turned into a dusty storm as krogan feet churned up the earth in their fury. Then, in an instant, the lines clashed.

Krogan fighting krogan was a nasty business. The masses of muscle and scale hit each other like freight trains, pulverising bony plates and flesh alike. The warlords quickly cleared the areas around them, biotic infused warhammers staving in skulls and sending overeager young bloods flying, many of whom got back up and came back for more in their bloodrage.

The warriors themselves let loose a barrage of horrific weapons on each other, flamethrowers and biotic abilities turned many a krogan into piles of gibbering flesh. Shotguns were at their most effective, the smarter warriors often downing two or three foes as they charged, before using omni-bayonets and hardened butt ends of weapons to finish the job. On the left side of the battlefield a Tarq warlord was felled as a youngblood ripped off his headplate and used it to puncture several of the old warriors hearts, much to the fury of the warlords sons nearby, who went after the Urdnot warrior in a bloodrage. Which was quickly cut off by a grenade exploding in the lead sons face.

The Shaman himself stayed just behind the main line, it was not his time to fight yet. Instead he glanced from right to left, taking in the carnage being being wrought. His nephews pup might well have been better suited to a battle such of this, but Wrex was long dead, and the Shaman had not gotten as old as he was by allowing his strength to sap. Lightly fingering the trigger on his graal, he tried to see where the warlords were. The telltale sight of krogan, or pieces of such becoming airborne and landing some distance away giving the Shaman an idea as to their positions.

If he squinted the Shaman could make out Warlord Yrog, one of only two Urdnot had possessed when he'd taken over from Wreav. Yrog was fighting a Tarq battlemaster with a claw hammer, dodging the weapons swings as he tried to get a burst of flames or shotgun blast through the titanic barrier his opponent was fielding. A few hundred krogan down the line several Tarq warriors were attempting to bring down one of the Shaman's older allies, the battlemaster Nagmyr Guld. If the distinctive sound of a large biotic explosion and screaming krogan were anything to go by, then they hadn't succeeded.

For that the Tarq forces were certainly determined, the youngbloods and warriors alike not faltering when pitted against warlords and battlemasters who were their match a thousand times over, they were most certainly not prepared for the viciousness the battle , the line buckled, the Tarq youngbloods in the centre expended or writhing on the ground as the line split. For several moments the Urdnot krogan roared in triumph, before the next part of the battle began.

As if a switch had been flipped, the two armies began to pull back. Neither side butchered the innumerable krogan littering the ground, instead dragging those least likely to bleed out to safety regardless of affiliation as the ritual part of krogan warfare started.

Urdnot Shaman strode towards where the centre of the battle had been, warriors moving aside as he did so. Opposite him, Tarq warriors did the same as their own leader walked across the field of dead and dying krogan.

Tarq Varlt was an old krogan, not old enough to have been around before the Rachni War, but to his credit the fool had survived both Krogan Rebellions, something few others could claim. As the battlemaster of clan Tarq stopped only a shuttles length from the Shaman, he issued the challenge in a sneering dismissive tone of voice.

"The failing slime of Urdnot dare face clan Tarq? I will gnaw on your bones before I leave you for the varren!"

The Shaman only allowed a grin to cross his face, before uttering the few words guaranteed to enrage the dumber members of his species in an even, almost jovial sounding retort.

"I cannot say the same Tarq! Perhaps you are not worth killing at all?!"

An audible gasp ran through the Tarq lines, and not even stopping to let out a roar of rage, Varlt sprinted towards the Shaman, shotgun up and firing.

The Shaman took the first shot on his armour, the graal spikes shattering parts of Wreav's skeleton as they impacted, the second he blocked with his shoulder, wincing as the spike tore through the flesh as if it were mud. Varlt continued his charge but just as Varlt reached him, the Shaman threw down his surprise.

A grenade is not typically a problem for a krogan. It might cause some nasty damage to the eyes, maybe give a few scars if unlucky, but rarely did anything beyond that unless it was particularly exotic. The grenade the Shaman used was supposed to take down a thresher maw from the inside. Suffice to say the explosion was big enough to cause a problem.

Varlt was thrown almost twenty metres away, his armour in tatters and his wounds healing across his body as he slowly stood up, thawing his broken shotgun to the ground. The Shaman gave a small sigh before doing the same with his own Graal, it wouldn't do for other krogan to think he was acting dishonourably on a matter so important.

Once again Varlt charged, but this time the Shaman met him, the two of them grappled and bit and tore at each other. Fists impacting on bony plates and claws scrabbling to get ahold of each others headplates. The Shaman had to admit, Varlt was strong. The blows to his ribs and organs were pulverising the flesh beneath, great gashes cleaved by claws into his sides, and his own blows not doing anywhere near as much damage in return.

For almost an hour the battle continued like that, for every blow the Shaman gave he received two in return. But Varlt was tiring. The blows were becoming slower, less coordinated, and his cuts were starting to bleed more freely. Had Varlt known that Urdnot Shaman had once survived having his leg ripped off and being kicked into a varren den, then perhaps he would have measured his blows, attempts to win though endurance rather than pure strength. But as Urdnot Shaman struck back once more, he wasn't getting much chance to think of anything.

Finally, the Shaman seized an opportunity and shoved his claws into a gap he'd worked into Varlt's headplate. What followed was messy, horrifying and brutally effective.

Catching his breath as his opponents corpse cooled, he turned to the solemn members of the former clan Tarq. Breathing a few times, he uttered the old words in tired formal korogorish.

" _Become part of my clan or become apart of the dirt."_

  
The remnants of the army bowed their heads, staring at the dust as they knelt. It wasn't going to be that easy of course, assassins would appear in the following weeks, and no doubt there would be four or five formal challenges within the year. But the hard work was done.

Looking to the sky, Clan Urdnot let out a roar of victory.

-

 **Exploratory ship "Bobs Uncle" - Above the moon Charon**

  
Mining eezo was hard work. Not because there was any great danger to the miners themselves, but rather that you had to be a special sort of person to actually spend weeks sifting through hundreds of tonnes of dirt for the smallest scrap of the most valuable mineral in the universe.

Charles Miller was not that sort of person, he was however more than willing to let exactly that sort of desperate hopeful know where to find the stuff. For a price of course. As he sat relaxed in his chair, he had to admit that sitting around for a few weeks was a bit boring. Communications took a while to reach the edge of the Sol system and he couldn't exactly download anything without lighting a giant sign as to where he was to the Navy. So when he ran out of entertainment, like he'd done three days prior, there truly wasn't that much to do.

Oh he'd scanned every asteroid he could find in reach, none had any eezo besides the one his gullible get rich quick tickets down below were mining. Hells the only other thing in range was Charon, and everyone knew eezo didn't occur on ice planets, those who'd thought otherwise had extremely expensive customers who weren't happy on their returns.

But what the hell it couldn't hurt to try.

Thirty minutes later, as Charles was sleeping in his chair, he'd awake to the screams of his miners as the moon below them exploded.

-

Deep in the centre of the galaxy, an old and malevolent being noted that another relay had been activated in the cycle.

 **AUTHORS NOTE**

Before I get into the actual thing i'd like to thank Logical Premise for the advice on the krogan portion of this chapter, he went into great detail and it was much appreciated.

Essentially honourable krogan warfare is very traditionalised. Two groups of krogan with a disagreement settle the location by a trial of champions, then they run towards each other until one side has breached the others line, then the leaders fight to determine the victor, though only rarely is it to the death.

More importantly though, I was wondering what everyone thought of the battle scene? I've never been good at writing them and i'd like to know if there are ways I can improve.


	19. Chapter 19 : Media

**Chapter 19 : Media**

 ** _Madinagrad - Luna - October 15th 2130 AD_** ****

  
Towering over the surrounding arcologies, the _Urdnot Wrex Centre for Biotic Learning_ was perhaps the most domineering building in all of Madinagrad. The blocky step pyramid was right in the centre of the ever expanding city, the largest off of Earth, and while it wasn't the tallest - that honour went to several skyscrapers in the business district - it was by far the most massive structure, stretching for almost a kilometre in all directions.

Around the base of the pyramid was the mass of humanity which called Madinagrad home, strolling through the endless sea of stalls and small buildings one could hear conversations in easily a dozen languages, ranging from the harsh Luna dialect of Pashtun amongst the stall owners to the almost melodious rhythm of Spacetalk* from military personnel on shore leave.

It was, Gina reflected, a chaotic mess.

Gina Dux had been born in the Netherlands, and sometimes she wished she had stayed in that place of relative order compared to the constantly shifting melting pot of Luna. But wishes meant nothing, and when she'd started to accidentally cause the pavement outside her house to explode at age 12, she'd been offered a Luna scholarship almost immediately. Eight years, a biotic implant and three boyfriends later Gina was about to become apart of the 2130 graduating class of biotic students.

That was, if she made it to the ceremony.

Shoving past a stall owner and ignoring the stream of english profanity following her, Gina desperately sprinted for the massive entranceway. Biotics she reflected, were fairly useful. She barely even thought about reinforcing her legs and taking a great leap over a tight crowd, or ducking under the arm of an irate security mech which the stall owner had probably notified. A glance at her watch told her that she still had a few minutes remaining as she sprinted through the entrance to the Pyramid. Once inside Gina blitzed through the security checkpoint, her tag only just registering as she did so.

Three minutes and a very rushed change of clothes later Gina finally arrived at the line of graduating students, fifty other biotics who would soon be out in the world, snatched up by the military or whichever corporations could pay them the most. Gina had already received several offers from corporations interested in research or security jobs, along with an offer to join the military directly at an officer rank. Something she was still mulling over in her head when she felt a tap on her shoulder. And the lightly amused voice of her idiot best friend sounded in her ear.

"Thought you weren't going to make it! I told you to be up by 7:00 and do you know what you did?"

Gina barely stopped herself from sighing out loud before replying.

"I... got up at 11:00."

If she looked behind her, Gina knew she'd see the shit eating grin of her best friend and occasional sporting archnemesis, Jordan Harmon. Because of course he was right behind her whenever something embarrassing happened, why wouldn't he be?

If it was possible for a voice to sound like they had an evil grin, then that was exactly how Jordan sounded when he replied.

"Oooohhh! You don't say? And why would that be I wonder?"

Another sigh escaped Gina as she wondered why life was so tantalisingly cruel sometimes.

"Because I was at Eduardo's house."

There was a certain temptation to punching smug people in the face that Gina had never quite gotten to understand till she'd met Jordan. For all that he was a good friend he could be the most insufferable person in existence. But if she wanted to graduate she'd have to not have a criminal record for attempted murder, no matter how much Jordan's smug grin was irritating her.

Instead as the line of graduates advanced Gina distracted herself by glancing at one of the job offers she had. Perhaps she'd give this "Harper Institute of Biotechnology" a try. Couldn't be too bad after all.

 _ **Valor Run - Scarpei - Turian Hierarchy Space**_

  
The column of Turians marched slowly up the main road 0f Valor Run, almost 20 diamonds* of veteran soldiers marching slowly through the bombed out ruins of a once magnificent city. To a non-Turian it would seem as if the diamonds were sloppy, disordered and generally at ease. Any Turian looking on would know that the soldiers were eerily silent, their formation spread out in a hunting pattern which would mitigate any fire against them, and the stances of the soldiers were that of the hunters stalking their prey.

Amongst the motley mix of talon soldiers* and fang troopers* strode a handful of cataphracts* who scanned the buildings as they passed, throwing grenades whenever they were unsure a room was empty. Above the column flew over three dozen grav-bikes searching the rooftops and deploying drones to scout the path ahead for booby traps and ambushes.

Staring at the holographic image on the command table in-front of him, Tarren Sparatus reflected that he always despised this part of hastatim operations, the wait for the inevitable. His role as colonel meant he was forced to watch the operations go on, yet not be able to change what he knew would occur. The resistance.

Despite all the technological advancements over the centuries, holograms had some difficulty showing small details on a grand scale. It was something about the way it was transmitted, almost in real time but not quite. The small delay was why the grav-bike operators didn't notice the sniper barrel sticking out of the abandoned hotel window several buildings down. Sparatus only realised something was wrong himself when the unfortunate sergeant of the lead diamond had her head vanish in a puff of gore.

Like clockwork, the Turian soldiers sprinted to cover, a handful firing in the general direction of the sniper while the cataphracts hurriedly set up field barriers and the grav bikes spread out over the surrounding streets.

Cursing the son of a vakar who'd promoted him in the meritocracy, Tarren Sparatus calmly began to issue orders over the comms.

"This is Colonel Sparatus, I want Diamonds 1, 3 and 4 I want suppressing fire down that street immediately! Diamond 2 recover sergeant Uela's body, cataphracts 1 though 4 provide barrier cover while they do that!"

A hurried glance at communication feeds from other sectors showed similar attacks were occurring elsewhere. This wasn't isolated. Turning his head back to the hologram in front of him Sparatus issued more commands as fast as he could remember how he was taught to respond in similar situations during training.

"Diamonds 16 and 18 clear the building on your left! Diamonds 5 and 6 clear the building on your right! All other diamonds are to remain in cover until the buildings are clear!"

A chorus of diamond leaders affirming the orders were the only response Sparatus received as his soldiers obeyed. Curiously, the sniper still hadn't fired another shot by the time diamond 2 dragged sergeant Uela's corpse into the nearby cafe they were sheltering in.

Something was off, Sparatus could feel it in his spurs.

Glancing at the street in front of his diamonds told Sparatus nothing, the sniper still hadn't fired another shot and the grav bikes drones weren't reporting any hostiles whatsoever, which was odd considering... considering that there had explicitly been at least three seperate militia groups in the sector only a day prior. A quick check of the feeds told him that the drones weren't picking up any life besides his own troopers, not even vermin.

Pressing the comms button hurriedly, Sparatus issued new orders, his mandibles tucking in as he forcefully kept his voice even.

"All diamonds, enemy may have info-war specialists in the area, assume communications and scanner detection are compromised, drones are confirmed compromised. All grav-bikes are to switch to manual steering."

Sparatus paused for a second before continuing, ensuring he didn't let any of the worry he felt slip through his voice.

"It is probable that enemy forces have an ambush ahead, as such Diamond 1 is given field command, cataphracts are to direct their assigned diamonds in absence of sergeants and are granted authority over artillery support. Reinforcements are being called in, all diamonds are to hold till their arrival before proceeding to the original objective."

A series of affirmatives and muffled curses were the only responses his diamond leaders gave him, but like all Turian soldiers they followed his orders implicitly, the comms going dark as officers turned off all communications except the emergency channel. Sparatus told himself that he wasn't worried, Sergeant Lorvace was competent, he'd been in three more campaigns than Sparatus himself after all. But at the back of his mind he couldn't help but curse. Switching comm channels, Sparatus contacted General Talid's command centre.

The Volus answering the communication was rather portly by VDF standards, the little amonia-breathers suit visibly straining around a large gut and chubby arms. The communications officer made several wheezing noises as it spoke in a haughty tone.

"Colonel *wheeze* Sparatus, is the matter urgent?"

Forcing down the retort of why else he would be contacting command, Sparatus answered in a matter of fact tone. His mandibles motionless.

"Affirmative. It's a Case Victus*."

If Sparatus was honest, he'd always had difficulty reading Volus. Their completely alien manner of speaking and even moving threw him off more than he'd care to admit, unlike an Asari or Drell who at least had familiar bodily reactions. But he did know the head tilt and shortened breaths before the beings response meant the communications officer was surprised.

"Indeed, *wheeze* I shall forward you to General Talid."

Shortly afterwards the grim half faced visage of Jashan Talid, scion of the family Talid, one of four living Preators of the Turian Hierarchy, filled the screen. The bright purple facepaint not distracting from the charred and cracked plating that covered the left side of his face. As the General looked Sparatus up and down, his mandibles... well mandible, tucked close to his face in the almost archetypical image of a Turian officer. Stern, unforgiving, all seeing. Sparatus offered his salute before waiting for Talid to acknowledge him, to do otherwise might put his entire position in the meritocracy at risk.

Returning the Salute, Talid spoke in a high pitched voice that belied his fearsome reputation.

"Colonel Sparatus, your request mentioned a Case Victus?"

Sparatus brought up the relevant data on his omni-tool, showing the complete absence of life signs and mech signals in his sector, then the footage of one of his sergeants getting her head blown off. Drawing his breath in, Sparatus replied.

"Yes sir, i'm uncertain if it is merely a local breech or if this is a wider scale case of sabotage. My men can't advance any further without expecting significant casualties sir."

Sparatus paused before continuing to the actual reason he'd contacted Talid in the first place.

"I'd request a Vakarak and a pounce section to clear the immediate area of hostiles while my soldiers secure the square and drop zone."

Talid acknowledged the request with a wave of his talons before seeming to consider something. The silence continued for several seconds before the general spoke.

"Granted, i'm detaching the 423rd and the 16th Vegria, ETA of four clicks. However you proceed is up to you Colonel but that square needs to be ours within the hour.

Saluting, Sparatus replied before switching off the comm channel.

"It will be done General."

 ** _Vthink's Hotel and Bar - Valor Run_**

  
Looking through the scope of his mass accelerator at the dug in invaders a few buildings down, Irvik Ferrus had just one question.

"Why have they stopped?"

At his side the other sniper assigned to the hotel, a grizzled old malcontent by the name of Balgir, gave a hacking cough before she answered.

"Because, greenhorn, they're calling for support. Probably an artillery barrage or a bombing run if they're not advancing at all."

The older woman grimaced as she found herself unable to line up another shot like the one that had killed the officer. Spitting off to the side, she called their fellows across the street, some thirty soldiers under the leadership of the former Autarch's brother.

"This is high ridge to red claw, opressors likely going to resort to high explosives to flush us out, don't think they'll walk into the mines. Those shields of yours going to hold Calewi?"

Irvik couldn't hear the rest of the conversation, he didn't have a translator on his omni-tool and wasn't former military like most of the fighters in Valor Run so instead he looked through his scope at the invaders, trying to spot any idiots moving out of cover. He ignored the grav-bikes above though, Balgir had said his mass accelerator would never pierce the armour the riders had on anyway.

Slowly, enough that Irvik didn't realise it at first a thruming sound emanated from the invaders direction. Not the distinctive hum of mass effect hover systems or the screaming of approaching aircraft, no this was...different, bestial almost. Like a dying vakar.

Balgir picked it up as well, her mandibles flicking rapidly as she tried to make sense of what she was hearing. As the thrum grew almost to the point where the items in the hotel room were shaking, Balgir's jaw dropped in horror. Turning to him, the old soldier let out a single word.

"RUN!"

For someone nearly a century old, Balgir was quite the sprinter, her strides carrying her twice the distance that Irvik's own were as she barged out of the room, yammering on her omni-tool in the soldiers language to Calewi's group. She descended the stairs rapidly, outright jumping over bannisters in her effort to leave the building as quickly as possible, the thrumming sound so loud that the windows were shattering all over the block.

Just as Balgir was about to enter the street itself, the light of panic left her eyes and she skidded to a stop, panting for a few seconds before she motioned Irvik to get behind one of the lobby pillars facing the street. For a brief moment, despite the deafening noise filling Irviks hearing, all seemed oddly quiet.

Then the world shattered as the massive truck rolled through the restaurant two buildings down.

The monstrosity before him was a soldiers worst nightmare. Armoured tyres three metres high supported some corruption of a truck, the thick metal sides encrusted with garish painted faces and symbols while the truck mount itself carried a missile launcher twice as long as Irvik was tall and eight massive canons were slowly rotating around searching for targets. The vehicle looked like on of his fantasy sketches of holovid movies, a wall of steel and death. Making the appropriate hand movements, Irvik began praying to the spirits.

On the column across from him, Balgir was dead silent. But slowly, she gestured for him to be ready to move.

The invaders diamonds had begun moving up, they must have cleared the mines Irvik had set earlier as he'd heard no explosions, and began forming a defensive position around the monstrous truck. Whose cannons still hadn't found any targets. Irvik couldn't help but feel that he and Balgir should have been detected by this point but who was he to question the blessings of the spirits?

Almost as suddenly as Balgir's first shot 30 clicks earlier, someone from Calewi's group threw a grenade at the truck.

The explosion engulfed one diamond utterly, sending pieces of armour flying in all directions like shrapnel. Two more diamonds were physically thrown back, the soldiers in them screaming as plasma melted their armour to their plates. The truck didn't even have a scratch on it's paint.

With a loud battle cry, Calewi's fighters charged out of the building they'd been hiding in, making a mad dash at the defensive formation around the truck. Irvik supposed it made sense as he remained deathly still, after all they weren't going to survive a long ranged skirmish against the truck. Using the reflection on a haptic screen above the lobby, he witnessed the fight unfold.

Mass accelerator fire bloomed between both groups as the Calewi's fighters closed the short twenty metres between them and their foe. A few of the invaders went down clutching their wounds or slumping over from penetrating shots but so did almost half of Calewi's soldiers, the mix of assault weapons and shotguns blowing off unshielded limbs and obliterating any part of the body they hit.

Balgir took the opportunity while it lasted, shoving Irvik along with her so hard that he dropped his rifle, she sprinted for the hotel's back exit, and as he was pushed along Irvik got a final glance back at the charge.

Calewi's men and women looked like they might make it to the lines when for a brief second, a shadow flickered from above. The battle-suit which obliterated Calewi himself under its feet as it landed was a SKYTALON, the brand new face of Hierarchy oppression. Three metres of metal and Turian, said to be invulnerable to small arms and capable of flying faster than some hovercars. Two more thudded amongst the scattering fighters immediately afterwards, their SPEAR miniguns opening up and almost vaporising half the remaining fighters outright. The continued fire from the invader soldiers finished off the rest of the doomed charge within seconds.

Irvik didn't know how long he and Balgir ran after that, crossing streets filled with soldiers and bombed out ruins of buildings over the course of an afternoon. By the time they'd stopped a few hours later, in some basement which Balgir broke into, Irvik still hadn't gotten over the butchery he'd seen. The sheer might of the Hierarchy dropped on his people like the fist of the spirits. As Balgir rummaged amongst some canned food she'd found in the basement corner, Irvik felt the need to ask a question.

"What now?"

The old woman paused for a second before continuing to look for the food, answering as she did.

"We make our way to the hatastim camp, and pretend we were rounded up with the others. We say we never fought, we're not soldiers, and we don't know anyone affiliated with our planetary government."

A few hours ago Irvik might have protested that. Any true honourable Turian would have. But if he was honest with himself, he didn't think honour mattered so much when death was certain.

As he looked to the sky, Irvik wondered what the future held.

 ** _List of Charter Colonies of the Union of Sovereign Human States in the Sol System - 2130 AD_**

  
 _ **Planet : Luna/Moon**_ __

 _Official Name : Lunar Autonomous Territory_

 _Capital : Madinagrad_

 _Population : 13.34 million_

 _Dominant Languages : Russian, Pashtun, Hindi, English, Spacetalk*, Spanish, Arabic_

 _Major Industry : Spacecraft fabrication, mining, electronic goods._

 _Colonial Status : Class 1_

 _ **Planet : Mars**_ __

 _Official Name : Mars Military District_

 _Capital : First Landing_

 _Population : 1.98 million_

 _Dominant Languages : Spacetalk*, English, German_

 _Major Industry : Mining, scientific research, tourism._

 _Colonial Status : Class 0 Military District_

 _ **  
Planet : Titan**_ __

 _Official Name : Titan Autonomous Territory_

 _Capital : Nova Prospect_

 _Population : 2.65 million_

 _Dominant Languages : Japanese, Tagalog, Afrikaans_

 _Major Industry : Mining, spacecraft production, tax haven_

 _Colonial Status : Class 2_

 _ **Planet : Jupiter**_ __

 _Official Name : Jupiter Mining Concern_

 _Capital : Station 3-E_

 _Population : 98,305_

 _Dominant Languages : Spacetalk*, English_

 _Major Industry : HE3 Mining_

 _Colonial Status : Class 1 Strategic Resource Region  
_

 _ **Planet : Europa**_ __

 _Official Name : Europa Autonomous Territory_

 _Population : 400,000_

 _Dominant Languages : Fang, French, Hebrew_

 _Capital : New Libreville_

 _Major Industry : Tourism, Mining, Tax Haven_

 _Colonial Status : Class 2  
_

 _ **Planet : Saturn**_ __

 _Official Name : Saturn Mining Concern_

 _Population : 112,000_

 _Dominant Languages : Spacetalk*, English_

 _Capital : Station 2-B_

 _Major Industry : HE3 mining_

 _Colonial Status : Class 1 Strategic Resource Region  
_

 _ **Planet : Ceres**_ __

 _Official Name : Ceres Autonomous Territory_

 _Population : 3.81 million_

 _Dominant Languages : Russian, Portuguese, Malay_

 _Capital : Rocky Fields_

 _Major Industry : Mining, weapons production, electronics_

 _Colonial Status : Class 2_

 _ **Planet : Pluto**_ __

 _Official Name : Pluto Military District_

 _Population : 290,000_

 _Dominant Languages : French, English, Arabic_

 _Capital : Fort Charles de Gaulle_

 _Major Industry : Scientific Research, Mass-Relay Tolls, Ship Repair_

 _Colonial Status : Class 0 Military District  
_

 _ **Planet : Ganymede**_ __

 _Official Name : Ganymede Autonomous Territory_

 _Population : 877,000_

 _Dominant Languages : Mandarin, English, Punjabi_

 _Capital : Khalistan City_

 _Major Industry : Mining, large scale food production, Dreadnought dry dock facility_

 _Colonial Status : Class 2_

 _ **Planet : Rhea**_ __

 _Official Name : Rhea Autonomous Territory_

 _Population : 1.3 million_

 _Dominant Languages : English, Greek_

 _Capital : New Corinth_

 _Major Industry : Mining, tourism, electronics_

 _Colonial Status : Class 3_

 _ **Planet : Triton**_ __

 _Official Name : Triton Autonomous Territory_

 _Population : 4.51 million_

 _Dominant Languages : Swahili, Spanish, Arabic_

 _Capital : Terra Nova_

 _Major Industry : Mining, tourism, scientific research_

 _Colonial Status : Class 1_

 **Authors Notes -**

Almost all the Turian part of this is from Logical Premise's premiseverse. Lord knows i couldn't come up with this sort of stuff.

Thank him for letting me use it by checking it out here on this site

* - Spacetalk is basically a language created for the purpose of interstellar communication, based off a mix of Spanish, English and Mandarin without some of the more complicated pronunciation rules. You want to fly a spaceship? You have to learn this. (It does have substantial variation depending upon the speakers origin though)

*A diamond is the most basic unit in the Turian army, three troopers, two heavy troopers and two light grav bikers.

*Talon soldiers are 1/2 of the standard turian infantry lineup. Building clearers and CQB guys armed with shotguns, explosives and decent armour

*Fang troopers are the other half, Phaeston assault rifles and light armour with a handful of grenades and maybe an omni-tool trick or two.

* Cataphracts are an odd mix of Officer, Combat Engineer, Sniper and Vehicle driver. Typically recruited from the families (Older turian clans with importance in the meritocracy) these guys and girls are heavily armoured and better armed.

* Case Victus is basically the Turian way of saying "we have a mole, some jackass has access to our tech".

Kinda unsure about initial part of this chapter but... meh, its gotta happen.

Also yay, biggest chapter yet.


	20. UPDATE MOVING SITE's

**THIS IS NOT A UPDATE FOR THE STORY - RATHER THIS IS A UPDATE TO SAY THAT WITH THE RECENT ISSUE GOING ON THAT I'M SHIFTING SITES WHERE I POST STORIES.**

Specifically I'll be posting future updates on the below sites.

 **1 : Frozen in Carbonite**

 **2: Sufficient Velocity**

 **3: Spacebattles**

 **ALAS, NO FURTHER UPDATES WILL BE POSTED TO THIS SITE**

Also please note that the original issue was someting to do with Profiles but that is over now, but honestly I must say I dislike some of the ways works (mechanically that is) and thats another part of the reason that I won't be posting updates here.


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